and that worst is, there was one that was mine, and I have lost him, for he is now made holier than the others.' When S. Macarius heard this he gave laudings and thankings to God.
It happed on a time S. Macarius found in this way the head of a dead man, and he demanded of it whose head it was, and the head answered: 'Of a paynim.' And Macarius said to him: 'Where is thy soul?' He answered: 'In hell'; and he demanded if it were deep in hell, and he said: 'Deeper than is from heaven to earth.' And after he demanded if there were any beneath him, and he said the Jews be lower than he was; he asked if there were any lower or beneath the Jews; to whom he said that the false christian men be yet lower and deeper in hell than the Jews; for, as much as they have despited and villained the blood of Jesu Christ of which they were redeemed, so much the more be they tormented.
An hermit which was in the desert was much tempted for to go again to the world, and he thought in his heart that he should do more good to be among the people than he should do in his hermitage. Then he told all this to S. Macarius, and S. Macarius said to him: 'Thus shalt thou say to thy thoughts, that for the love of Jesu Christ I keep the walls of this cell'
It happed on a time that S. Macarius killed a fly that bit him, and when he saw the blood of this fly, he repented him, and so, repentant of that, would revenge it, and anon unclothed him and went naked in the desert six months, and suffered himself to be
