…about two miles away. The hegoumen there was a very devout man, Abba Eugenios, who later became bishop in Egypt, which is on the border of the first Thebaid. When we visited that monastery, he told us that when Abba Alexander the Cilician reached old age in the caves of the holy Jordan, he took him into his own monastery. For three months, at the end of his life, he was confined to bed. Ten days before he went to the Lord, he was assailed by a malicious demon. The elder began saying to the demon, “Wretch, you have come at the evening time. That is no great deed, for I am bed-ridden and immobilized. Without intending to, you have shown me your weakness, fool! If you were able and strong, you should have come to me fifty or sixty years ago. Then, by Christ Who lends me strength, I would have shown you your weakness. I would have beaten down your pride and bowed your stiff neck. This weakness which afflicts me is not of my own making, but something which weighs me down. However, I give thanks to God, to Whom I am going, and to Whom I shall make known the injustice which you inflict upon me by your merciless attack upon me at the end of my life, after so many years spent in rigorous asceticism.” He would say this, and much more besides, each day. Then on the tenth day, he surrendered his spirit to the Lord Jesus Christ in utter serenity and at peace.
John Moschus, Leimonarion (The Spiritual Meadow)
Compassion, 