mind that at the turn of the day he was sufficiently mad to come into the church and to say before all the brotherhood who were assembled therein, “I have no need to become a partaker in the offering, for this day I have seen Christ Himself.” Then the fathers tied him up and put iron fetters upon him for about the space of one year, and in this way they made him whole; and he was praying continually, and they humbled him and brought him down from the exalted conception which he held concerning himself by means of sundry and divers works of a lovely and humble character, and thus they rooted out from him pride, even as it is written, “Each opposing sickness must be healed by medicines which are contrary and opposite thereto.”
Chapter xxiij: Of Hero the Alexandrian [Bishop of Diospolis about A.D. 365]
AND there was also my neighbour, a man whose name was Ahrôn (Hero), who was by race an Alexandrian; now his early manhood was exceedingly glorious, and he was enlightened in his mind, and his intellect was keen, and the habits of his life were pure. This man, I say, after [performing] many labours was also seized by the passion of boasting and pridefulness, and he wavered and fell; and he evolved in his mind and imagined great things against the fathers, and he reviled also the blessed Evagrius, saying, “Those who allow themselves to be persuaded [into accepting] thy doctrine certainly go astray and err, for [men] require no other teacher than Christ.” And he put forward and urged in witness of his words, with foolish intent, the speech from the Gospel (which our Redeemer also spake), “Ye shall call no man master on the earth” (St. Matthew 23:8). And his understanding became so greatly blinded that at length on him also iron fetters fell, and he was fast bound, because he would neither be persuaded nor would he receive or be a partaker of the Holy Mysteries, although he loved the truth greatly. Now, the food upon which he lived was too little and the habits of his life were immeasurably strict, for, according to what those who were continually with him used to relate, on several occasions he only partook of a meal once in three months, the participation in the Mysteries only being sufficient for him; but if it happened that he came across some wild herbs by chance [he would eat them].
Now I myself, with the blessed man Albinus, received an experience of him when we were going to Scete. Scete was forty miles distant from us, and we partook of two meals and drank water three times [on the way], whilst he tasted nothing
