“who art full of guile, thou father of all falsehood, thou enemy of all righteousness! Wilt thou never cease to lead astray the souls of Christians? And dost thou dare to trample underfoot even the Holy Mysteries?” Then the Devil said unto him, “A very little more, and I should have been master over thee in thy fall, for thus have I led many a man astray, and I have driven him out of his mind and made him mad, but when many holy men made supplication to God on his behalf in their prayers, he came back to his senses.” And having said these things unto him the Devil departed from him. Now the legs of the blessed man burst open because of standing over much upon them, and a discharge of water and pus ran from them; but the angel [of the Lord] drew nigh unto him and said, “The Lord shall be thy meat and the Holy Spirit thy drink, and thou mayest be certain that this spiritual food shall suffice for thee.” And having healed his wounds he made him to pass from that place. Then the blessed man went about in the desert and fed himself upon roots, and he used to come Sunday by Sunday to his place and partake of the Holy [Offering].
Now a certain man who was paralysed wished to go to him and be healed, and immediately his legs touched the back of the ass which he was going to ride, through his faith only they were healed, before the holy man had offered up even a prayer on his behalf. On one occasion the holy man John begged the priest who ministered unto him to bring him a few palm leaves, as it were for pleasure, and he brought them to him, and the blessed man plaited them together; and the priest took some of the plaits and made a girth of them for his ass. Now there was a certain paralytic who wished to go to the blessed man and be healed, and he entreated the priest to carry him to him; and the priest took him and set him upon the ass, and immediately his legs touched the back of the ass which he was going to ride and the girth which the blessed man John had plaited, through his faith only they were healed, before the holy man had offered up even a prayer on his behalf. (Such is the story as told in another manuscript.) On another occasion he sent a gift (or blessing) to those who were ill, and immediately they had tasted it they were healed of their sicknesses.
And on another occasion it was revealed to him that some of the brethren of his monasteries were not upright in their lives and works; and he wrote an epistle to them all, and accused the elders of being negligent, and the brethren of running after adulation, and it was known that this really was so. And he wrote also to the fathers who were neglectful, and who held lightly the salvation of the brethren who were with them, and he told the others to amend their lives, and to make their
