On one of his journeys he came to Athens, and, having neither money nor goods, starved there for three days. But on the fourth he went up, seemingly to the Areopagus, and cried, “Men of Athens, help!” And when the crowd questioned him, he told them that he had, since he left Egypt, fallen into the hands of three usurers, two of whom he had satisfied, but the third would not leave him.
On being promised assistance, he told them that his three usurers were avarice, sensuality, and hunger. Of the two first he was rid, having neither money nor passions: but, as he had eaten nothing for three days, the third was beginning to be troublesome, and demanded its usual debt, without paying which he could not well live; whereon certain philosophers, seemly amused by his apologue, gave him a gold coin. He went to a baker’s shop, laid down the coin, took up a loaf, and went out of Athens for ever. Then the philosophers knew that he was endowed with true virtue; and when they had paid the baker the price of the loaf, got back their gold.
When he went into Lacedæmon, he heard that a great man there was a Manichæan, with all his family, though otherwise a good man. To him Serapion sold himself as a slave, and within two years converted him and his wife, who thenceforth treated him not as a slave, but as their own brother.
After awhile, this “Spiritual adamant,” as Palladius calls him, bought his freedom of them, and sailed for Rome. At sundown first the sailors, and then the passengers, brought out each man his provisions, and ate. Serapion sat still. The crew fancied that he was sea-sick; but when he had passed a second, third, and fourth day fasting, they asked, “Man, why do you not eat?” “Because I have nothing to eat.” They thought that some one had stolen his baggage: but when they found that the man had absolutely nothing, they began to ask him not only how he would keep alive, but how he would pay his fare. He only answered, “That he had nothing; that they might cast him out of the ship where they had found him.”
But they answered, “Not for a hundred gold pieces, so favourable was the wind,” and fed him all the way to Rome, where we lose sight of him and his humour.
To go on with almost chance quotations:—
Some monks were eating at a festival, and one said to the serving man, “I eat nothing cooked; tell them to bring me salt.” The serving man began to talk loudly: “That brother eats no cooked meat; bring him a little salt.” Quoth Abbot Theodore: “It were more better for thee, brother, to eat meat in thy cell than to hear thyself talked about in the presence of thy brethren.”
Again: a brother came to Abbot Silvanus, in Mount Sinai, and found the brethren working, and said, “Why labour you for the meat which perisheth? Mary chose the good part.” The abbot said, “Give him a book to read, and put him in an empty cell.” About the ninth hour the brother looked out, to see if he would be called to eat, and at last came to the abbot, and asked, “Do not the brethren eat to-day, abbot?” “Yes.” “Then why was not I called?” Then quoth Abbot Silvanus: “Thou art a spiritual man: and needest not their food. We are carnal, and must eat, because we work: but thou hast chosen the better part.” Whereat the monk was ashamed.
As was also John the dwarf, who wanted to be “without care like the angels, doing nothing but praise God.” So he threw away his cloak, left his brother the abbot, and went into the desert. But after seven days he came back, and knocked at the door. “Who is there?” asked his brother. “John.” “Nay, John is turned into an angel, and is no more among men.” So he left him outside all night; and in the morning gave him to understand that if he was a man he must work, but that if he was an angel, he had no need to live in a cell.
Consider again the saying of the great Antony, when some brethren were praising another in his presence. But Antony tried him, and found that he could not bear an injury. Then said the old man, “Brother, thou art like a house with an ornamented porch, while the thieves break into it by the back door.”