ble; and, attentive to all the motions of
his grace, studied only to do his will. Four years he spent in the trial
of his own strength, and in learning the obligations of his state,
before he made his religious profession, which was in the twentieth year
of his age. In his writings, he severely condemns engagements made by
persons too young, or before a sufficient probation. By fervent prayer
and fasting he prepared himself for the solemn consecration of himself
to God, that the most intense fervor might make his holocaust the more
perfect: and from that moment he seemed to be renewed in spirit; and his
master admired the strides with which, like a mighty giant, the young
disciple advanced, daily more and more, towards God by self-denial,
obedience, humility, and the uninterrupted exercises of divine love and
prayer.

In the year 560, and the thirty-fifth of his age, he lost Martyrius by
death, having then spent nineteen years in that place in penance and
holy contemplation. By the advice of a prudent director, he then
embraced an eremitical life in a plain called Thole, near the foot of
Mount Sinai. His cell was five miles from the church, probably the same
which had been built a little {678} before, by order of the emperor
Justinian, for the use of the monks, at the bottom of this mountain, in
honor of the Blessed Virgin, as Procopius mentions.[2] Thither he went
every Saturday and Sunday to assist, with all the other anchorets and
monks of that desert, at the holy office and at the celebration of the
divine mysteries, when they all communicated. His diet was very sparing,
though, to shun ostentation and the danger of vain-glory, he ate of
every thing that was allowed among the monks of Egypt, who universally
abstained from flesh, fish, &c. Prayer was his principal employment; and
he practised what he earnestly recommends to all Christians, that in all
their actions, thoughts, and words, they should keep themselves with
great fervor in the presence of God, and direct all they do to his holy
will.[3] By habitual contemplation he acquired an extraordinary purity
of heart, and such a facility of lovingly beholding God in all his
works, that this practice seemed in him a second nature. Thus he
accompanied his studies with perpetual prayer. He assiduously read the
holy scriptures, and fathers, and was one of the most learned doctors of
the church. But, to preserve the treasure of humility, he concealed, as
much as possible