The Paradise/Volume 1/Book 1/The Paradise of Palladius/The Histories of the Holy Men/History 58

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Palladius of Galatia3928270The Paradise, Volume 1, Book 1, The Paradise of Palladius, The Histories of the Holy Men — 58 The History of the Monk who fell1907Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge

Chapter LVIII: Of The Monk Who Fell

AND by the side of these blessed men I saw a man who also had made himself remote from the world, and he dwelt in holes in the rocks even as did they; now this man was mocked at by the devil of vainglory, and by the visions which he saw, and he was deluded (or snared) by things which appeared to approach him and then wandered away. And he was lacking in mind, even as it is written, “Being exalted in his dreams he pastureth spirits and pursueth after a shadow”; now he was chaste in his body, perhaps owing to the length [of his years], or perhaps through vainglory, yet through the matters of spiritual excellence he destroyed his understanding, and he was corrupted by empty and polluted glory, and because of this he departed from the straight road of the ascetic life.