she came with him through all the desert even unto his cell and gave him milk to drink, and she would not let her calf suck from her in those days.
And on another occasion the brethren were digging a well in a certain place which was called Thrônôn, when a serpent which belonged to the class of deadly serpents bit him. Then Macarius took hold of the serpent with his two hands by his upper and lower lip and, grasping him tightly, tore him in twain, from his head even unto his tail, and said unto him, “Since Christ did not send thee, why didst thou dare to come [here]?” Now the blessed man had four cells in the desert: one in Scete, in the inner desert, one in Libya (?), one in the “Cells,” and one in Mount Nitria. [Two] of these were without windows, and in them he used to dwell in darkness during the Forty Days’ Fast, another was so narrow that he could not stretch out his legs, but another, wherein he used to receive the brethren who came unto him, was wide and spacious. And he healed so many people who were possessed by devils that no man could count them. Once when I and the blessed Evagrius were there in his cell they brought unto him from Thessalonica a certain virgin who had been a paralytic for many years, but by means of prayers and by anointing her with oil with his hands he cured her in twenty days and sent her away whole to her city and home; and when she had departed she sent to him gold and goods of various kinds.
And again, he heard from a certain man that the monks of the Monastery of Tabenna lived stern lives of self-denial, and he took counsel with himself, and put on the garb of a young man and a husbandman, and in fifteen days he went up to the Monastery of the Broken Ones by the way of the desert, and came to the Monastery of Tabenna, seeking to see the head of that Monastery whose name was Pachomius. Now Pachomius was a man elect and perfect, and he had the gift of prophecy, but the [business] of the blessed Macarius was hidden from him. And when Macarius saw him he said unto him, “Abbâ, I beseech thee to receive me into thy monastery that I may be a monk therein.” Pachomius said unto him, “Thou art an old man, and art not able to fast. The brethren are men who fast, and thou canst not endure their labours, and because thou art not able to do this [thou wilt] be offended, and thou wilt go forth and wilt abuse them”; and he would receive him neither the first day nor the second day, nor any day until seven days [were passed]. But since he remained fasting throughout all these days he said unto the head of the monastery, “Abbâ, receive me. And if I do not fast like unto you, and toil as ye do, command them to cast me out;” so
