And finally, they used to say, “After we are dead everything will be yours, but during our lifetime the income which we derive from our villages we shall take for ourselves.” Now they used to divide their moneys among the churches and monasteries, and houses for the receiving of strangers (or hospitals?) and among the poor and needy. And besides these things they performed the following act of excellence. There was a great famine, and every man shut up (or restrained) his mercy, but these folk opened the storehouses which they had in their villages, and gave [food] to eat to those who were famished, and through this act the heretics who were living in that country were changed and were turned unto the [true] knowledge when they saw their unspeakable lovingkindness; and they gave praise unto God for the simplicity of their faith. And other examples of their excellence were the following: The modest garb, common and simple apparel, food eaten but rarely, and then only in such quantity as was sufficient [to maintain] life; and they lived meanwhile in a state of chastity which was acceptable unto God. They dwelt in the fields several days [at a time], loving a life of silent contemplation, and they fled from the tumult of cities and from the evils which are begotten of them, lest when they were living among a crowd of people something might come upon them to disturb them, and they might fall from the[ir] divine state of mind. For this reason these blessed men were doing all these excellent things, because that with the eyes of the understanding they had already looked upon the good things which had been for ever prepared for them.
Chapter xlvij: Of the Blessed Woman Magna
IN this city of Ancyra there were also many other virgins who led lives of ascetic excellence, and they were two thousand, or more, in number; and they kept themselves in restraint and served God with great humility. And among them were also famous women who triumphed with glorious strenuousness in the contending of the fear of God, and of those was Magnâ, the chaste and proved wife; now I know not whether I ought to describe her as a virgin or as a widow, for this woman, owing to the pressure which was put upon her by her mother, was yoked unto a husband. But she used to make pretences to her husband in divers ways, and she avoided his embraces by urging the bodily sickness which she had on her as an excuse, and thus she was, according to what the members of her household said, preserved spotless from him. Now, after a short time the man died, and he left everything which he had unto her alone, and she exchanged the
