Here followeth of the Abbot Moses.

John, abbot, when he had dwelled forty years in desert with Episius, then Episius demanded how much he had profited, and then he said: As long as I have been solitary there was never sun that saw me eating. And John said: Ne me, being wroth. In like manner it is read that, when Epiphanius the bishop gave flesh to the abbot Hilary, he said: Pardon me, for sith I took this habit I never eat flesh ne fowl. To whom the bishop said: And sith I took mine habit, I suffered never none to sleep that had anything against me, ne I ne slept also as long as I was contrary to any other. To whom Hilary said: Father, forgive it me, for thou art better than I. John would have lived like unto angels, and entended always to serve God without any other thing doing, and he despoiled him, and was a whole week in desert. And when he was almost dead for hunger, and all stung with bees and wasps, he returned to the door of his brother and knocked, and he asked: Who art thou? and he said: I am John. And that other said: Thou art not he, for John is made an angel and is not among men. And John said: Truly I am he; but for all that he left him there till on the morn. And then he opened the door to him, and said to him: If thou be a man it is need that thou labour again for to be fed, and if thou be an angel, wherefore desires" thou to enter herein? And John said: O brother, forgive it me, for I have sinned. And when he should die his brethren prayed him that he would leave to them, instead of heritage, a word of health, and that short, and then he sighed and said: I did never yet mine own will ne I never did thing to any other but I did it first myself. Hæc in Vitis Patrum.

Moses, the abbot, said to a brother of his which demanded of him a sermon, to whom he said: Sit still in thy cell and it shall teach thee all things. There was an old man being sick which would go into Egypt because he would not grieve his brethren. The abbot Moses said to him: Go not thither, for if thou go out thou shalt fall into fornication, and he was angry, and said: My body is dead, why sayest thou so? And when he was gone, it happed that a maid served him for devotion, and kept him in his malady, and when he was whole he defiled her, and gat on her a child. And when the child was born the old man took the child in his arms, and came on a day of great feast into the church of Sixtus to a great multitude of people, and when his brethren wept, he said: Lo! see ye this child, this is the son of inobedience, therefore beware ye, brethren, for I have done this in mine old age, I pray you pray ye for me. And then he returned into his cell, and came again to his first estate. And in like wise as another old man said to another: I am a dead man, and that other said to him: Trust never to thyself till thy soul issue of thy body, for if thou say that thou art dead, nevertheless thine enemy the fiend is not dead. There was a brother which had sinned, and was sent by his brethren to the abbot Moses. And he took a basketful of gravel and came to them, and they demanded him what it was, and he said: These be my sins that run after me, and I see them not, and I am this day come to deem the sins of a stranger. They, hearing this, spared their brother. A like thing is read of the abbot tofore him, for when the brethren spake of a brother that was culpable, he held him still and spake not. And after took a sackful of gravel and bare it behind him the most part, and a little tofore him, and they demanded him what it was, and he said: The most part be my sins which I bear behind me, them I consider not, ne sorrow for them. And this little that I have before me be the sins of my brethren, which I consider all day and judge them, howbeit I should always bear mine own sins tofore me, and think on them, and pray to God for them that he would forgive me them. When the abbot Moses was made clerk, and the bishop had ordained the oflice, he said to him: Now, thou art made all white, and Moses said: Withinforth or withoutforth? Then the bishop would prove him, and said to his clerks that when he should come to the altar they should wrongfully put him from it, and follow him, and hear what he would say. And anon they put him away, and said to him: Go out thou Ethiopian, and as he went out he said: They have done well to the foul wretch for to defile and do despite to thee, for sith thou art no man, what presumest thou to be among the men. This said he to himself. Hæc in Vitis Patrum.