Xi

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XOIUS.

1. A brother asked Abba Xoius, this question, 'If I happen to eat three loaves, is that a lot?' The old man said to him, 'Brother, have you come to the threshing-floor to beat grain?' So he said, 'If I drink three cups of wine, is that a lot?' He said to him, 'If the devil did not exist, it would not be a lot, but since he exists, it is a lot. Wine is alien to monks who live according to God.'

2. One of the Fathers said of Abba Xoius the Theban that one day he went to the mountain of Sinai and when he set out from there, a brother met him, groaning and saying, 'Abba, we are in distress through lack of rain.' The old man said to him, 'Why do you not pray and ask God for some?' The brother said to him: 'We pray, we say litanies and it does not rain.' The old man said to him, 'It is because you do not pray with intensity. Do you want to see that this is so?' Then he stretched his hands towards heaven in prayer and immediately it rained. Seeing this, the brother was filled with fear

and threw himself face downwards on the ground, bending low before him, but the old man fled and the brother told everyone what had happened. When they heard this, they glorified God.