Chapter XXV.
The words of Abbot Moses which he said to me about the
cure of accidie.
When
I was beginning my
stay in the desert, and had said to Abbot Moses, the chief of all the
saints, that I had been terribly troubled yesterday by an attack of
accidie, and that I could only be freed from it by running at once to
Abbot Paul, he said, “You have not freed yourself from it, but
rather have given yourself up to it as its slave and subject. For the
enemy will henceforth attack you more strongly as a deserter and
runaway, since it has seen that you fled at once when overcome in the
conflict: unless on a second occasion when you join battle with it you
make up your mind not to dispel its attacks and heats for the moment by
deserting your cell, or by the inactivity of sleep, but rather learn to
triumph over it by endurance and conflict.” Whence it is proved
by experience that a fit of accidie should not be evaded by running
away from it, but overcome by resisting it.
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1003
This Abbot Moses is
probably the one to whom the first two Conferences are attributed (cf.
also Conference VII. xxvi.); and possibly the second of this name
(Moses the Libyan) mentioned by Sozomen, H. E. VI. xxix. Cf. also
Palladius, the Lausiac History. c. xxii.