Chapter XVIII.
How a monk ought to avoid women and bishops.
Wherefore
this is an old maxim
of the Fathers that is still current,—though I cannot produce it
without shame on my own part, since I could not avoid my own sister,
nor escape the hands of the bishop,—viz., that a monk ought by
all means to fly from women and bishops. For neither of them will allow
him who has once been joined in close intercourse any longer to care
for the quiet of his cell, or to continue with pure eyes in divine
contemplation through his insight into holy things.