“get thee away quickly to the desert, to the region thereof which is nigh unto the habitations of men, for thou shalt beget for Me a holy people, who shall be exalted by [their] good works.” Then Apollo made answer, and said, “My Lord, take Thou away from me pride, lest peradventure I become [unduly] exalted over the brotherhood, and I lose all the blessing thereof.” And the [divine] voice spoke again unto him, and said, “Place thine hand upon thy neck, and whatsoever thou layest hold upon, take it down and bury it in the sand”; then he quickly laid his hand upon his neck, and laid hold upon a small Ethiopian, and he buried him in the sand, as the creature cried out and said, “I am the spirit of pride.” And again the voice came to him, and said, “Get thee gone, and whatsoever thou shalt ask from thy God shall be given unto thee.”
So the blessed man, having heard [this], straightway set out to come to Shainâ, in the time of Julian, the Emperor [and] tyrant. And at first he lived in the desert which was nigh unto Shainâ, in a small cave which he found there on the side (or base) of the mountain, and his occupation was as follows:—he offered up prayer unto God the whole day through, that is to say, he prayed one hundred times in the night, and as many times in the day, and he bowed his knees when he prayed. As concerning his food he took no care whatsoever, for that was given unto him by God, and it was brought into the desert by an angel; his apparel consisted of a short-sleeved garment which covered his body, and a small napkin which he wore on his head, and these remained upon him in the desert and never wore out. He lived in the desert which was nigh unto Shainâ in the power of the spirit, and he worked miracles, and performed many wonderful cures, the glory of which it is impossible for a man to describe, but we have heard thereof from the elders who were with him, and who were also perfect men, and from the heads and governors of the brotherhood. This man, then, was famous as a new prophet, and as an apostle who had appeared in our generation. And when his fame had travelled abroad on all sides, all the monks who lived scattered about in various places came unto him in a body as unto a true father, and they offered themselves to him as an offering. And the blessed man stirred up some of them to divine visions, and others to glorious deeds of spiritual excellence, but he first of all shewed them by actual examples the things which he was exhorting them to do by his words, and he incited them on several occasions to perform work of ascetic excellence. One Sunday after another he ate with them, but he tasted nothing but the herbs which grew of themselves in the
