Chapter ii. The Triumphs of Mar John the Recluse, the Prophet of the Thebaïd who lived in Lycus
I SAW then on the borders of the city of Lycus, in the Thebaïd, the great and blessed man John, a man who was truly holy and excellent, and by his works it was known unto every man that he possessed the gift of prophecy. And he made known unto the believing Emperor Theodosius, before they took place, the things which God was about to do unto the children of men, and he revealed [to him] what manner of ending they would take, and the arrogance of the kings who would rise up against him, and how they would speedily be destroyed, and how the nations which would gather together to make war upon him would perish, [and his ability to read the future was] so [great] that even a general came to enquire of him, if he should be able to conquer the Kûshâyê peoples (i.e., the Nubians), who at that time had boldly invaded Syene, which is the beginning of the Thebaïd, and who had overrun the city and laid it waste. And the blessed John said unto him, “Thou shalt go up against them, and shalt overtake them, and thou shalt conquer them, and shalt be victorious [or triumphant] before the Emperor”; and these things were actually done. Now this blessed man possessed the power of prophecy to an extraordinary degree, according to what I have heard from the fathers who were constantly with him, and as the lives of these men were well known to the inhabitants of that country, and were carefully scrutinized by them, it is impossible to think that their stories about him were in any way hypocritical; on the contrary, their language was incapable of describing his honourable life and deeds.
There was a certain tribune who came to him, and who begged and entreated him to allow his wife to come to him, for she was exceedingly anxious to see him; she was about to go up [the river] to the district of Syene, and before she went up she wished to see him, that he might offer up prayer on her behalf, and bless her, and then send her away [on her journey]. And because the blessed man had taken a vow not to see women, and because he was ninety years of age, now he had been in a cave for forty years, and he had lived therein the whole time, and had never departed from it, and because he never allowed any man to come into his abode, he excused himself from seeing the noble lady; and he was in the habit of saluting folk through his window only, and of blessing those who came to him therefrom, and he spake with every man only concerning the care which it was necessary to take in the matter of the life and works of ascetic excellence. And, although the tribune multiplied greatly his supplications and entreated him to allow his wife to come to him, now the dwelling of the blessed man was situated in the mountainous desert about five miles distant from the city, the holy man would not be persuaded to do so, but said, “This thing is impossible”; and he dismissed the tribune in grief and in sorrow. And the woman tormented her husband by day and by night, and she took an oath, saying, “I cannot go to any other place until I have seen the holy prophet.” And when the oaths of the woman were revealed to the blessed man by her husband, he discerned the faith of the woman, and said unto her husband, “I will appear unto her in a dream this night, but she must never [try] in addition to see my face in the body”; and the tribune made known to his wife the words of the blessed man. And as she was lying in her bed at night she saw the prophet himself come to her, and he said unto her, “What have I to do with thee, O woman? Why dost thou so eagerly desire to see my face? Am I a prophet or a righteous man? I am a sinner and a man of passions even as ye are, but behold, I have prayed for thee and for thy husband, and for thy dwelling, that even as ye have believed, so may it be unto you. Therefore get ye gone in peace;” and having said these words he departed from her. And when the woman woke up she related to her husband the words of the prophet and described his form and appearance, and she offered her thanks to the prophet through her husband. Now when the holy man John saw that her husband had come, before he could speak he said unto him, “Behold, thy request is completed, for I have seen thy wife, and I have fulfilled her petition, and thou must never see my face again; but depart ye in peace.”
Now the wife of another prefect was with child, and she was nigh unto [her time] for bringing forth; and her husband was away at a distance, and on the day in which the blessed man John met her husband she was afflicted, even unto death, with the pains of her bringing forth. And the holy man John gave the news to her husband, and said unto him, “If thou didst only know the grace of God, for behold, a son hath been born unto thee this day, thou wouldst praise God, for his mother hath suffered in no small degree. Behold, thou shalt go and shalt find the boy to be seven days old on thine arrival, and thou shalt give him the name of John, and when he hath grown up, and hath been instructed, and is seven years of age, thou shalt send him to the solitary monks in the desert.”
And the blessed John also made manifest wonderful things like these to stranger folk who used to come to him, and he very frequently made known to the people of the city who used to come to him beforehand concerning their affairs, and showed them the things which were about to happen. And he told each one of them that which was done by him in secret, and he foretold concerning the rise of the river Nile, and the good crop which there would be as the result thereof, and described it unto them; and he declared and pointed out the time when the anger of God was about to come upon them, and rebuked those who were the cause of the same. Now the blessed man John did not himself work his cures openly, but he used to consecrate the oil and give [it] to those who were afflicted, and they were healed. Thus the wife of a certain nobleman had the light of her eyes taken away through the cataract which obstructed the light thereof, and she begged and entreated her husband to take her to him, and when he said unto her, “The blessed man hath never met a woman,” she besought him to have a message sent to the holy man asking him to offer up a prayer on her behalf; and this the blessed man did, and he also sent her some oil over which he had said a blessing and made the sign of the Cross, and when she had smeared her eyes therewith three times, after three days she was able to see. Then she praised God the Lord of all, and openly gave thanks unto Him always.
And what shall we say about his other deeds? [Nothing]. We can only tell of the things which we saw with our own eyes. Now there were of us seven brethren who were strangers, and who went to him all together, and having given us the salutation of peace with his glorious face, and shown his gladness [at seeing us] to each one of us, we asked him before anything else to offer up a prayer on our behalf, for it is the custom with all our fathers in Egypt to do this. Then he asked me if there was, perchance, a man among us who was a priest or deacon, and although we said there was none such among us all, he well knew that there was one among us who was hiding his honourable rank. Now there was among us one who had received the hand of deaconship, but only one of the brethren, and he was with us, knew of this, and the deacon, by reason of his humility, prohibited him from making this known to anyone, “For,” said he, “in comparison with these holy men I am not worthy to be called even Christian; permit me then not to make use of the honour of deaconship.” Then the blessed man pointed out to us all with his hand the deacon, and said, “This brother is a deacon”; whereupon the deacon denied this repeatedly, thinking to lead us astray, but the blessed man grasped the hand of the deacon through the window, and kissed it, and begged him, rebuking him at the same time, saying, “Wrong not the grace of God, O my son, and lie not concerning the gift of Christ with the denial of an alien; for falsehood, whether it be uttered concerning a small matter or a great one, or something which is convenient, is still falsehood, and is not to be praised. For our Redeemer said, ‘All falsehood is of the Evil One’” (St. Matthew v, 33, 37; St. John viii, 44). And the deacon being thus rebuked accepted the reproof of the old man pleasantly.
And when we had prayed and made an end of our supplications, one of us became afflicted with shiverings and strong fever, and he begged the blessed John that he might be healed. Then the blessed man said unto him, “This sickness is for thy benefit, because a diminution of faith hath come upon thee,” but he gave him some oil, and let him anoint himself therewith, and when the man had rubbed the oil upon his body, every evil thing which was inside him he cast forth through his mouth, and he was completely cured of his sickness, and departed on his own feet with us to the place where travellers rested.
Now the blessed man appears to have been about ninety years old, and his whole body was emaciated and frail as if by the severity of his rule of life, and no hair whatsoever remained upon his cheeks; and he ate nothing whatsover except dried vegetables (or fruits), and in the period of his old age he did this at sunset. In the early part of his career he suffered severely, because he would neither eat bread, nor anything which had been cooked by fire. And he commanded us, and we sat down with him, and we gave thanks unto God that we were esteemed worthy to see him; and he rejoiced [in us] as if we had been beloved children of his who were meeting their father after a long absence, and with a joyful countenance he held converse with us, saying, “Where do ye come from, my sons, and from what country? Ye have come to a miserable and wretched man.” And when we told him [the name of] the country, and that we had come to him from Jerusalem for the benefit of our souls, and that that which we had received with our ears we might see with our own eyes, for the hearing of the ears is less trustworthy than the sight of the eyes, and frequently error maketh its way into what is heard by the ears, whilst the remembrance of what a man hath seen can never be blotted out from the heart, and the description of the same will be permanently fixed in the mind, the blessed man John anwered and said unto us, “What great thing did ye think ye would see, O beloved sons, that ye have come all this way, and have toiled all this great toil? Did ye desire to come and see miserable and wretched men? We possess nothing whatsoever which is worth looking or wondering at. There are, however, in every place men who are wonderful and who are worthy of admiration, that is to say, men who are called in the church the Prophets and Apostles of God, and of these it is meet that we should emulate their example.
“But I marvel greatly at the indefatigable zeal which made you treat the tribulations of the journey with contempt in order that ye might come hither, for your welfare, to those men who, because of their sluggishness, are unwilling to go out of their caves. And I say that, although that which ye have now done meriteth praise, ye must not allow th thought to come into your minds that ye have fulfilled completely every duty, but ye must make yourselves to be like unto your fathers in respect of the glorious rules of life by which they were guided and the works which they did. For although ye possess all the virtues, which is a difficult matter to accomplish, ye must not even so be [over-] confident in yourselves, for the men who have become puffed up with pride, and who thought they had arrived at the stage of [being worthy of] praise, have subsequently fallen from their high estate. But examine yourselves carefully and see whether your consciences are pure, so that purity may not be driven out from your minds; and let not your thoughts wander about at the season when ye stand up in prayer before God, and let not any other thought enter into your mind and turn it away from that glorious sight of God which riseth upon the pure heart at the season of prayer, and which enlighteneth and maketh the understanding to shine; and let not the remembrance of evil thoughts disturb your minds. And examine yourselves and see whether ye have truly made a covenant with God, and whether ye have not, after the manner of men, entered in that ye may attain the freedom which is in Christ, and whether ye do not desire to possess the vainglory of ascetic deeds, and whether ye do not, after the manner of men who boast themselves before men, [possess only] the similitude of our ascetic deeds. And take heed lest any passion whatsoever vex you, or any longing for honour or glory from the children of men, or any deceitful desire of priesthood, or of self-love. And do not think that ye are righteous men only, but be ye diligent and zealous in very truth that ye may neither be boastful nor unduly exalted by applause.
“And let there not be any anxiety about family in the mind of him that prayeth unto God in very truth, neither shall there be to him any remembrance of the fair things which have been done by him, nor love for other folk, nor any memory whatsoever of the world, for if the man who holdeth converse with his Lord be reduced, or drawn aside, or led away by any other mind [than this] his labour is emptiness. Now this falling away happeneth to the mind of man after man who doth not deny the world absolutely, and who hunteth after the approbation of the children of men; for he devoteth himself unto everything in multitudes of ways, and his mind is divided among many kinds of thoughts, both of the body and of the earth, and thereupon he is obliged to strive against his own passions and is not able to see God. It is therefore not seemly for a man to think that he hath found knowledge with absolute certainty, [lest peradventure being unworthy of knowledge], and having only acquired a small portion thereof, he imagine that he hath found the whole of it, and so he devote himself wholly to destruction. But it is right that we should always draw nigh unto God with moderate ideas and in faith, so far as it is possible to approach Him in the mind, and so far as the children of men are able to attain unto Him. It is right therefore that the mind of every man who loveth God should be remote from all these things, for he who in truth seeketh after God with all his heart will remove his mind far away from every earthly thing, and he will direct the gaze of his understanding towards God, for it is written, ‘Turn ye and know that I, even I, am God’ (Psalm xlvi, 108). He therefore who is worthy of a little of the knowledge of God, for man is not able to receive the whole of it, is able to acquire the knowledge of many things, and to see those mysteries which the knowledge of God will shew him. And he will see the things which are about to happen beforehand, and glorious revelations will be made known to him as [unto] the saints, and he will do mighty works, and everything which he asketh from God he shall receive.”
And having said these things unto us, and many others which also concerned the rules of the life of ascetic excellence, he added the following:—“It is right that every one who is a man of discernment should wait for his departure from this world as if he were going to approach a life of happiness, and that he should not set before his eyes the humiliation of the body, and should not fill his belly with that which he hath; for the thoughts of him that filleth himself full of meats resemble those of men who are fed upon delicate meats. But strive ye in your life and deeds to acquire the power of enduring lusts and appetites patiently, and let no man seek after the things which are fine, and those which are gratifying to the body, but let him restrain himself in the short time [which we have] here so that he may inherit rest and relaxation in the kingdom of God, for it is said, ‘Through abundant tribulation it is meet for us to enter into the kingdom of God’ (Acts xiv, 22). And in this manner also Paul the Apostle admonished us, and he spake that which he had learned from our Redeemer, Who said, ‘How strait and narrow is the way which leadeth to life, and few there be who find it (St. Matthew vii, 14); and how broad is the gate, and wide the way which leadeth to destruction, and many there be who travel upon it.’ And let us not be in despair in this country, for in a very little while we shall depart unto the world of rest; and let not any man be [unduly] exalted through the fair deeds which he performeth, but let him be always in a state of penitence. And let him betake himself away far into the desert whensoever he feeleth within himself that he is becoming [unduly] exalted, for on several occasions the monastic dwelling which is nigh unto villages hath harmed those who were perfect. And he must do as did one unto whom this happened, who said in his Psalm (Psalm lv, 6, 7), ‘Behold, I fled away to a remote place, and I took up mine abode in the whirlwind,’ and I waited for God to deliver me from littleness of soul, and from the spirit of the world. And this very thing hath happened unto many of our own brethren, and because of their pride they fell away from the mark which they had set for themselves.
“Now there was a certain brother who dwelt in a cave which was in the desert nigh unto Shainâ, and he followed the ascetic life with the utmost strenuousness, and he used to provide himself with bread day by day by the labour of his hands; and because he was constantly in prayer, and excelled greatly in praiseworthy actions, and had confidence in himself, and was proud of his fair life and deeds, the Tempter, having asked God for him as he asked Him for Job, shewed him the form of a beautiful woman who was wandering about in the desert in the evening. Now this woman, finding the door of the cave open, leaped up, and passed through the door, and fell upon the knees of the man, beseeching him to let her rest there because the night had overtaken her, and he, having compassion upon her, [did] what was not right, and received her into the cave, and he wished to learn from her how she had come to lose her way. Then she spake unto him, and sowed words of sin and of incitement to lust in his ears, and she prolonged her conversation with him so that by means of her lascivious flattery she might excite him to the hateful lust; and there being much speech between them, together with laughter and jesting, she led him astray little by little by means of much speaking until at length she took hold of his hand, and then of his beard, and then of his neck, and finally she made the valiant man her captive. Meanwhile as thoughts of these things were chasing each other through his mind, and he believed that the matter was in his own hands, he waited for the moment and the opportunity when he would be able to fulfil his lust; and having delivered himself over to his wicked imagination, he strove diligently to work it out, and to be united to the woman like a man who hath lost his mind, and like a horse mad with desire, [and as he was about to fulfil his lust] the woman cried out several times, and suddenly escaped from out of his hands, and flew away like a shadow. Then straightway there was heard in the air the great shouts of laughter of the multitudes of devils who had overthrown him and made him to fall into error, and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Whosoever exalteth himself shall be humbled; and as for thee, O thou who didst exalt thyself unto the heavens, behold, thou hast been brought down into the deepest depth.