The Desert Fathers

Book VII

OF PATIENCE OR FORTITUDE

I. When the holy abbot Antony was living in the desert, his soul fell into a weariness and confusion of thought, and he began saying to God, "Lord, I would be made whole and my thoughts will not suffer me. What shall I do in this tribulation, how shall I be whole?" And in a little while, rising up, he began to walk in the open, and he saw someone, as it might be himself, sitting and working: and then rising from his work and praying: and again sitting down and making a plait of palm leaves, and then rising once again to prayer. Now it was an angel of the Lord sent to the reproof and warning of Antony. And he heard the voice of the angel, saying, "This do, and thou shalt be whole." And hearing it, he took great joy of it and courage. And in so doing, he found the deliverance that he sought.