Chapter 69
the hope that it might take root, threw away his only vessel of oil, and tried to roll away an exceedingly heavy block of stone. Upon receiving the order,
Abbot Mucius threw into the river the boy he had brought with him into his hermitage. In all probability, there were brethren waiting in concealment near by to save the child from drowning. In the Verba Seniorum, the obedient Ab bot Johannes irrigated a dried out log for three years until it actually bore fruit, which was then openly exhibited in the church to be seen by the monks.
"Behold," they were told, "the fruit of obedience!" Abbot Silvanus on one occasion saw a small wild pig and said to his disciple Markus: "Do you see that little antelope?" Marcus answered: "Yes, Father!" "And do you see how shapely its horns are?" The disciple answered again: "Yes, Father!" The monks admired his obedience. To label such "blind obedience" a priori as an aber ration would be incorrect. It must be remembered that these monks kept in the forefront of their minds the example of our Blessed Lord, who was obedi ent unto death (cf. Phil, ii, 5 ff). This, of course, was looked upon as folly by the heathens, and was a stumbling block to the Jews (cf. 1 Cor. i, 23). Quite simply, they wanted to follow to the letter the example of the Savior.
SIXTY-NINTH CHAPTER
No one in the Monastery may presume to defend another Care must be taken that on no occasion one monk presumes1 to defend another in the cloister or in the same way take him under his protection, not even should there be some bond of 1 The Holy Rule uses the expressions, "presume to do" or "attempt to do," in some thirty passages in the course of its chapters. It is an old monastic way of speaking. The cenobite who has renounced himself, that is, his will, and the world no longer has any rights, properly so called. Everything that he does without per mission or against the will of his abbot and the Rule is a presumption," an arrogation to himself of rights that he has voluntarily relinquished. According to Abbot
Agatho, "presumption is like a burning wind. When it comes up, everything flees before it, and it withers all the fruit on the trees." "Is this presumption so bad?" asked Abbot Macarius. Agatho replied: "There is no other vice that is worse than presumption, for it is the mother of all the vices. Therefore it behooves the workman (the monk) to be without presumption, even when he is in his cell. I know of a brother (for example, who had lived for a long time in his cell and had a couch there. He could say, 'I left my cell, knowing nothing of a lounge had not another spoken to me about it.' He was a true workman and campaigner." Abbot
Dorotheus in Palestine (f after 535), in the course of his fourth conference on the Fear of God, harking back to the foregoing maxim of Abbot Agatho, concluded that presumption completely destroys the fear of God and with it the very stability of the monk.