that which hath made me to work, for it wisheth to go forth from its state of rest, and it fatigueth me”; and having walked about for a long time he went into his cell, having exhausted his body.
And one day there laid hold upon me the chills of fever, and I went and sat down, and watched him from the window (or opening in the wall), in the feebleness of his old age. And I was thinking about him that he was like unto one of the brethren of old, and I began to listen unto him that I might see what he was saying, or what he was doing; now he was alone inside [his cell], and he was one hundred years old, and moreover, his teeth had fallen out by reason of his old age. And I listened unto him and to what he was saying, and he was striving with his soul and with Satan, and he was saying unto himself, “What dost thou wish for, O thou wicked old man? Behold, thou hast eaten oil, and thou hast drunk wine, what more dost thou wish for? Wouldst [thou] eat Satan’s white food?” And he was reviling himself. And moreover he said unto Satan, “I cannot conquer thee in any wise, and thou art not able to do anything unto me; get thee gone from me.” And again he said unto himself, “How long shall I be with thee?”
And moreover, Paphnutius, the disciple of this man, related unto myself and unto the blessed Evagrius, saying, “One day a female hyena took her whelp, which was blind, and came and knocked with her head at the door of the court when he was sitting therein, and she dropped the whelp at his feet. And he took up the whelp, and prayed, and spat in its eyes, and straightway its eyes were opened and it saw; and its mother gave it suck, and then took it up and went forth. And one day later she brought unto the blessed man a sheep-skin cloak, that is to say, a skin which hath been stripped off a sheep; and the blessed woman Melania spoke unto me concerning this sheep-skin cloak, saying, ‘I myself received this sheep-skin cloak from the hands of Macarius as a blessing.”
And Paphnutius also spake thus, “From the first day whereon he received baptism he never spat upon the ground, and he lived for sixty years after his baptism.”
Now in his latter days he was beardless, and he only had a small quantity of hair upon his [upper] lip and upon his chin; because by reason of his excessive fasting and the abstinence of his solitary life not even the hair of [his] beard would grow. I once went unto him when weariness of the ascetic life had laid hold upon me, and I said unto him, “Father, what shall I do? For my thoughts vex me, and say unto me, ‘Thou art doing no [good], get thee gone from here.’ ” And he said
