No art of memory

Memory is not an art, nor could it ever be. The arts are Memory's gift to us, but memory itself cannot be taught or attained by any art. It is an advantage that some receive from nature, or the luck of their immortal soul. Without it, humanity would have no connection to eternality, and nothing we learn could ever be taught, if Memory did not dwell within us.

Whether Memory should be called the Mother of Time or its Child, I leave to the poets, who can say what they want. But no one among the truly wise would be dumb enough to throw away their good standing by [claiming to train the memory through mystic arts, and] posing like a juggler in front of little kids—the kind of thing that gives actual pedagogy a bad name.

So how did the students of Dionysius of Miletus all have such prodigious memories? The answer is that his lectures were so enjoyable that his listeners craved to hear them again, and Dionysius, in awareness of his own charisma, was obliged to repeat them many times. They became stamped in the minds of his brightest students, who declaimed them to each other until all had memorized through practice what memory alone could not supply. This is how they came to be called the "Mnemonic School," and were credited with turning memory into an art. It's also why people say the declamations of Dionysius are a piecemeal corpus, augmented in different places by different individuals where Dionysius himself had been succint.

From Lives of the Sophists by Flavius Philostratus

Alexander the Sleepless XXIII

Over a half century of ascetic rigor, the Blessed One suffered unceasing oppression, nakedness, hunger, and thirst, and rejoiced in them. He taught the word of truth bluntly and outspokenly, gathering up multitudes and ferrying them to Christ, as his disciples do today. He was brilliant at it, and to the blessed and untroubled end of his labors, when a saintly sleep at last came over him, he was outpaced by no one. He was laid to rest in Bithynia, at a place called Gomōn [which Janin locates here, but van Esbroeck says was here].

Through the Blessed One's intercessions after taking leave of life, the order attracted still more disciples. I have already told of their renown, not just locally but all over creation, and of the monastery founded by the leaders of the brotherhood, the aforementioned Monastery of the Sleepless Ones, so named for their unceasing and unsleeping doxology. It is an institution worthy of his way of life. Here were his blessed, saintly remains translated, and in order that God, Who loves humankind, might demonstrate right there that that He honors those who honor Him, and that everything the Blessed One did was in accordance with His will, these holy relics work miracles every day. Meanwhile, those of unclean spirit cannot endure the mention of his name, and react as if burned by the sound of it.

As proof of our brotherly love and affection, and caring only for the truth, we have despite our incapacity for the task [set forth the Blessed One's virtues] as we saw them. By the Lord, our hope is that the Holy Spirit will inspire others with more knowledge than we to expound it more clearly, as an edifying boon to those who would follow this way of life. May it happen that we all become disciples worthy of him, and may his intercessions guide us to what he shares in now, by the good will and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

          

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.52-4            

Alexander the Sleepless XXII

Fifty years of struggle. Who is equal to narrating them down to the last detail? Who is graced with sufficient inspiration for the task? Faithless haters of the good will no doubt take me for a teller of impossible things, outlandish things, all out of proportion with human nature, because flesh is all they are. But the faithful, who believe as we in property as something held in common with our neighbors, will accept that we are telling the truth, for they also believe in our Lord who vowed: "The works I do, you will not only do yourselves, but greater works besides," when his disciples marveled at the withering of the fig tree. And again: "All things are possible for one who believes."

As for us, we recognize no higher proof than the correctness of the way of life perfected by our teacher. So let us finish our story here, where his life came to its close.

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.52

Alexander the Sleepless XXI

They released Alexander, thinking that God's slave would be isolated, but he had Christ with him and was not alone. As if roused by one trumpet, all the brothers came together just as soon as he was free, and that same day the rule of their service to God was reinstated, and they carried it through as if as if nothing had happened—nay, exulting in it like finders of spiritual treasure, and still more brothers joined them in their progress in the Lord.

If you're ever of a mind to travel the whole world under heaven, you'll find disciples of this Blessed One blossoming in Roman and barbarian lands alike. For they founded the famous Monastery of the Sleepless Ones, and many great ones besides, each as conspicuous as the sun in heaven. And if I tried to number every single one of the noble athlete's virtues, "time would fail me," just as the blessed apostle Paul said.

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.51

Alexander the Sleepless XX

Then the Enemy of Truth got in Alexander's face and bellowed: "Why do you bedevil me before my appointed time? Mine own Master and my Judge are unto me." Consequently, the judges took no just decision, and their judgment went against the greater judge. They took it in hopes he would be torn apart by the people [of Constantinople] and the Devil's shield-bearers. But Alexander took courage from God's protection, and made his way through their midst, for the mob were smitten by a terror of the Lord, and their mentality fell apart.

[....] When that battle was stopped by the power of Christ, Truth's Enemy did not keep silent, but schemed and did everything he could to arrest the incessant hymn-singing that was mobilized against him. Considering how often states and nations are betrayed by their own citizens, he hit upon the tactic of enlisting confederates of Alexander's own rank. And together with his holy brethren, the blessed one was seized, and clapped in chains and beaten. Their hymn-singing was arrested for several days, and the brethren and the holy powers were awash in grief, for all were hauled back [to their monasteries of origin] by their former shepherds on [episcopal] command.

From The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.49-50

Alexander the Sleepless XIX

Alexander's service was carried out to perfection, with God's help, and his disciples were far advanced in their faith. They took so much joy in their psalms and hymns and peaceful way of life that the Enemy was outraged at the sight, and went against the noble athlete like an army going to war.

Before armies charge at each other in unison with swords drawn, and victory goes to the stronger force, they fire missiles from far away, and that is how the Enemy began. For fifty years he had battled Alexander, and always the battle went against him, and the man remained unbroken. Now, for one last time, the Enemy joined all his demonic forces to a population he had recruited from humanity and, hurling his bolt against the slave of God, made his advance.

And so word went to the eparchs that Alexander the monk was a heretic, out to defile the church of God. But with his prayers to see him through, the blessed one's enemies couldn't even stand up to his shadow, so to speak. For it is in the nature of falsehood to be ruined by the truth. To state the truth opaquely, righteousness made it through the storm.

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.48

Houses of the unjust

By what logic are descendants liable for their ancestors? Do they not inherit their estates, and the gold and silver so often accumulated from unjust sources? That's sufficient cause, indeed the main cause for their liability. Their tribulations are shared with their ancestors' shades, who suffer along with them.

It is right for descendants to pay ancestral penalties, for it is into just such families that people worthy of their sufferings are born. Methodically, justly, and transcendently are all things woven together by Providence, divine Nature, and the gods guided by Fate! For there is a certain unity to be observed within a family. Among the seeds and principles of growth [of any type of plant] there is a commonality, and it is analogous to the commonality of souls in families like these, and the ills and blessings they incur. If, when we went to bed, we were to forget our lives of the previous day, then the life of one person—which might go on for seventy or eighty years—would seem to us to contain many lives. In families like these, there is a similar kind of coherence that is beyond our view, though it is certainly evident to the gods whom Fate guides, and to the spirits assigned by Chance to each of these families. And just as doctors don't rush into surgery to treat the malady threatening an individual patient's life, but wait until that patient is ready to go through it, neither do the spirits that oversee one family—quite the way Herodotus narrates that the penalty of the Lydian [tyrant Gyges] was expiated by his descendants five generations later.

Accursed deeds of long ago: To remedy a recent sin is relatively easy, but those committed long ago are harder to wash away, and cannot be cleansed without theurgic action. This too may be observed in medical practice, where maladies of recent origin are easier to recover from when they've only just struck, as long as the patient attends proactively to their care. Left to fester over time, the evil sets into the system like an indurated scar, becoming as it were a second nature. It is the same is with unjust deeds. A remorseful wrongdoer, who makes amends straightaway to the wronged party, thereby dissolves the unjust deed and becomes free of liability for the penalty. And when someone undoes the wrong committed by their father—by giving back a field he seized, let's say—not only is that person's liability removed, but the soul of the one who seized it is uplifted and relieved. And theurgic action is also helpful in such a case.

But take the case of a man who keeps a field he seized from those who cleared it. If it the property stays in his family, and his descendants continue to use it, the injustice becomes less obvious and harder to redress, and over time the evil is naturalized, so to speak. That is why the gods often issue prophetic commands [for those who petition the oracle] to go to this or that place and apologize to a certain person previously unknown to them, and to make amends to that person in order to recover their health, and put an end to their sufferings and pursuit by Furies. The gods issue this kind of prophecy not to abrogate justice, but in order to effect just outcomes and rectify our ways of life.

Theurgy, then, wherever it arises, restores the mad to health, and through them it saves many others. [The way it works is] like what they say about the man who was cutting down an oak tree, and when a nymph begged him to stop, he spared not the oak but cut it down, and was thereafter subjected to the Furies' retribution and afflicted with want of sustenance. Anything that fell into his hands was taken away, until an initiate told him to set up an altar to the same nymph, and with that his disasters came to an end. Another man, a matricide, was told by the god to find a land other than land that exists, and go live there. When he put together that this signified an island newly risen from the stream, he went and made his home upon it, and his castigation by the Furies came to an end.

From the Commentary on Plato's Phaedrus (244de) by
Hermeias of Alexandria

Some myths are true

SOCRATES: The speech I will deliver is by Stesichorus son of Euphemus of Himera, and it has to go something like this:

It's false to say that, rather than someone who loves you madly and is good to go, you should take a disinterested lover who is sane and rational. That would be well said if all madness were bad. But it is through madness that our greatest blessings come to us, by which of course I mean the madness that is the gift of the gods. [Firstly,] in public as in private matters, the ravings of the oracle at Delphi have done Greece a lot of good, and so have the holy women who prophesy at Dodona, but little to no good when these same women were in their right minds. And if we were to speak of the Sibyl, and all others whose divinely-inspired pronunciations have corrected so many people's courses toward the future, then our discourse would obviously run on long.

But it is worth giving evidence for the beliefs of the ancient name-givers, according to whom madness was no cause for rebuke or shame. Otherwise, they would not have called our noblest prognostic arts by a name that implicates them in mania. But in their conviction that divinely-awarded madness is a blessing, they designated these arts as manic; it's only now that the "mantic arts" are spoken of with an inserted letter t, which is an insipid vulgarism. [By contrast,] when they assigned a name to those forms of research into the future performed by the non-mad, through studious contemplation of birds and other omens, they called them oionoïstikē, since these techniques endow mortal oiēsis (opinion) with nous (intellect) and historia (fruits of inquiry). Nowadays, by way of affecting a more sententious tone, people lengthen the second o and pronounce it as oiōnoïstikē. The upshot of all that is this: To the same degree that mantic arts are more perfect and honorable than augury—in name as they are in deed—the superiority of divine madness to mortal reason is attested by the ancients.

It also happens, in the event of ailments and grievous harms stemming from accursed deeds of long ago [e.g.], that madness intervenes to communicate a divinely-inspired message to those in need, and through resort to prayer and ministration to the gods it ferrets out their means of deliverance, hitting thus upon purifications and sacred rituals and bringing wellness once and for all to the sufferer touched with madness. Madness finds release for people in the grip of present evils, provided that they rave in the right way.

Thirdly, there is possession by the Muses. This madness takes hold of pure and tender souls and stirs them to song and other verse forms in a Bacchic frenzy. Thus arranged by the Muses' madness, countless feats of the heroic past are made teachable to hearers of the latter day. Anyone who shows up at the gates of poetry without it, presuming to become a worthy poet through craft alone, is destined for oblivion when the poetry of the stark and raving blows away that of the merely sane.

Plato, Phaedrus 244a-245a

Alexander the Sleepless XVIII

I will narrate another miracle, supernatural and superhuman, about a medicinal brew the foresightful blessed one prepared for some brothers who were sick. For this purpose, they took ramekins of clay and set them in the ground [near the hearth] to be heated there, and he tapped four brothers to oversee the preparation in day-long shifts. Then there came a day when it slipped their minds—or rather, the Lord allowed it to slip their minds, in order that His servant stand revealed to all. 

It was a day when no one paid attention. All they did with the ramekins that morning was to wash them, fill them with cold water and leave them sitting there. But when the hour drew nigh, and they were reminded of their duty, they were ashamed to look at any of their brothers, and did not dare to go to their abbot and let him know. Finally, one of them got up the courage, and went to him and said, "We had no wood, and heated no water." The blessed one, when he heard this, said, "And why were you not mindful of it this morning? Not that it matters: I know you're trying to test me. You can go back now, your water's hot." Doubtful as they were, they went back and found the ramekins bubbling, though it was obvious no fire had gone beneath them that whole day. And once again, the brothers marveled at the man's faith.

These few miracles have been chosen in order that we may believe in the many I could set forth, and that all things were possible for him through his perfect faith.

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.47

Alexander the Sleepless XVII

Certain faithless men took it in hand to test his grace. Day and night, they shadowed the brothers to find out where their food was coming from, for every day they saw it ready, and that after taking what sufficed them, these slaves of God took no thought for the morrow, but gave it in abundance to the poor. Through the Holy Spirit, the blessed one knew of their investigation, and at a time when none had knocked upon their door, said to one of his followers, "Go, and let in what the Lord has sent us." And before the brother got there, a man in white came knocking. The brother opened it to find a basket full of fresh-baked bread, still warm—but the angel of God who had knocked so urgently was nowhere to be seen, leaving a man standing there with the bread. "Who sent you?" the brother asked when he came in. The man responded, "I was taking my loaves out of the oven when a man of giant size appeared beside me, robed in white, and fiercely pressured me to 'Take all that bread to the slaves of the Most High!' He made me follow him to this place, knocked on the door, and then he vanished. I don't even know where I am."

Hearing all this, the brother reported it to his blessed abbot. The holy Alexander received the bread and served it warm to the brothers, who were already at their tables. With gratitude, they took their share and gave the rest to their brothers, the indigent poor. And [those formerly faithless men] marveled when they saw the unrestrained liberality of him who, in accordance with Scripture, gave no thought to the morrow.

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.45

What could this be?

The now-sainted Symeon was ailing at this time, and on the point of death. Gregory, when I made this known, sped to him, hoping to embrace him at the very end, but did not make it soon enough.

There were none to overshadow Symeon's greatness in his day. From the time he was a boy of tender nails, he pursued a life of hard extremity at the top of a pillar. His baby teeth had not yet fallen out when he took his stand there. The circumstances of his ascent to the pillar were these:

He was just a little kid, wandering boyishly in the foothills, when he came upon a wild leopard. Throwing his belt around its neck, he used the strap to lead around the beast, now forgetful of its wildness, and walked it back to his schoolhouse. Beholding this from the top of his own pillar, the schoolmaster asked: τί ἂν εἴη τοῦτο? "It's a cat," the boy said.

This proved the lad's future greatness, as far as the old man was concerned, and he conducted him up the pillar, where Symenon lived out sixty-eight years—first on that one, and then atop another in the highest fastness of the mountain. For expelling demons and healing every malady, every grace was due him, and for seeing into future things to come. To Gregory, he foretold that Gregory would not be present at his death. As to what might happen after that, he said, he had no knowledge.

From the Ecclesiastical History (VI.23) of Evagrius Scholasticus

Alexander the Sleepless XVI

The blessed one reflected on the zeal and faith he observed in the brothers and the magnitude of their devotion. What could this mean? Through the Holy Spirit, it dawned on him that even in these quarters he was being called to wage the struggle. Energized by this conclusion, he made himself ready, and prayed for Christ's will to be done swiftly. And God, Who loves humanity, was swift to answer his prayer. 

Alexander took up residence near the shrine of the sainted martyr Menas, and within a few days there flocked to him noble athletes of Christ out of every monastery in the area—three hundred of them, all sound of mind, belonging to three races: Romans, Greeks, and Syrians. To fulfill his mission of hymn-singing without pause, Alexander separated them into six groups, and schooled them in monastic poverty, molding everything after the pattern of his old rule. Within a matter of days, the hierarchy he laid out was ordered as to every virtue, and the basis for their struggle was made plain to all. For he grouped them in tens and fifties, ordaining decarchs and penetecontarchs to lead them, and hourly they poured their strength into singing the praises of God.

On beholding their systemized struggle, their ceaseless hymn-singing, their immaculate poverty, and the incredible mysteries made no less wondrous by the evident truth of their accomplishment, the commonfolk of the city came devoutly to Alexander as a benefactor and teacher, and inhaled his teachings about hope and the life to come. Before long, he had become the harbor of salvation and educator of justice for all. When he was silent, his life gave continual voice, crying its admonishments aloud against the adulterators of God's commandments, while his free and unrestrained speech excoriated the unrepentant. Above all, though, it was seeing the extremities of poverty the brothers took on, and the severity of their discipline, and the fact that their possessions were limited to parchments containing the holy scriptures, and their capacity for singing hymns without pause, and the bodiless way they inhabited their bodies—it was seeing all these things that roused the people's astonishment and praise of God, Who had revealed His incredible mysteries even in those quarters.

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.43-4

Alexander the Sleepless XV

The clergy, seeing every day how things were going, professed their admiration but were privately consumed by envy. [....] Taking counsel together, they went and entreated the military commander, asking him one favor: that he banish the holy one and his brothers to the city of Chalcis in Syria. But God, Who loves humankind, made their knavery a benefit, since the blessed one's Syrian retreat would expedite his reunion with spiritual children he had not laid eyes on after twenty years.

The faith of everyone [in Chalcis] was strengthened upon Alexander's entry into the city. The rulers' fear of him was such that he spent some time as a ward of the public guards, only for the citizens to take over his protection, such was their desire to be with him. And he marveled at God's forbearance, and how He had frustrated the subterfuge of [Antioch's] wicked people, of which Alexander was well aware.

After some time, he resolved to withdraw and move on someplace else, as he had done six times in the past. He could not take leave openly, due to the military commander's orders, so he changed clothes with a beggar, and in this dress made his departure by night. 

Many days on the road later, he came to a place where he discovered a monastery called "Barleycorn," whose men were distinguished for their piety. He went in and greeted them all, and was struck by the order and consistency of the holy brothers' life, and the greatness of the love they shared. "I recognize this way of life," he said to himself, "as if it bore the stamp of my old precepts. I wonder how they were spread into this region, for their leaders are new to me. Never on all the roads I've traveled have I seen anything like it." Then, on learning who had instituted the monastery and its principles, he discovered that it was founded by one of his own flock! And he gave glory to God, Who showed him that his labors had borne fruit, even in that [unknown, but seemingly westward-lying] place. 

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.40-2

Alexander the Sleepless XIV

Theodotus, bishop of Antioch, was in thrall to a party of wretched hypocrites (called periodeutae). On learning that the blessed Alexander had entered the city with a mob of monks singing psalms without pause, he gave orders for their abuse and expulsion with blows, and this warrant to injure the servants of God was carried out unsparingly as they were driven away. But the holy one saw through the Devil's trappings and, in the middle of the night, together with his brethren, he re-entered the city unseen, and found an old bathhouse in which to resume their continuous singing of hymns. [The acoustics were probably amazing.] Their audacity sparked the bishop's wrath, which he dared not take out on them again for fear of the people of his city. For the Antiochenes, having heard of Alexander's incredible feats and seen them for themselves, revered the blessed one as a prophet, wherefore they abandoned the church to attend to him and his wondrous teachings.

Finding that honor, glory, and the license to speak universally without restraint were now his, and that his preaching was enjoyed by all, and that they were ready to do anything he called them to, he saw it was time for action, and turned straightaway to caring for the city's poor. Here too, the holy one's majesty of soul is cause for wonder. Hounded from place to place, this man without possessions focused his zeal on the construction of a hospice. He gathered the city's wealthy before him, and lectured them as the divine presence dictated, and that is how the necessities of the hospice were furnished. Even with the bishop and the military commander, he was conspicuously unrestrained in his complaints about many things they had left undone. In short, he made himself the teacher and the trainer of all and sundry.

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.38-9

Alexander the Sleepless XIII

At the end of four days' travel, they arrived at the place where a large monastic community had for its chief Alexander's own brother, their archimandrite. Did his way of life accord with the Gospel of the Lord? It was Alexander's intention to find out. 

He brought a single member of his brotherhood up to the gates with him and knocked. "Patience," responded the gatekeeper in the ordinary fashion. "Let me notify the abbot, and then you may enter." But Alexander refused to wait, and followed him inside, to find out if the archimandrite would be roused against his gatekeeper. 

When his saintly brother, whose name was Peter, beheld him after thirty years, he recognized his sibling at once, for even in darkness it is natural to recognize one's own. And he fell at his feet, and hugged them, and begged Alexander to forgive what had taken place. But the blessed one spoke harshly and accusingly. "Our father Abraham received his guests personally and attended to them, and our lord Jesus Christ made it the law." And he shook the dust from his clothes and went back on the road. The most reverend Peter and all the brothers of his community were in tears as they begged him to stay, even if just one day, but Alexander declined. And with this lesson in true monastic poverty and divine love he left them, and set off for Antioch.

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.37

Alexander the Sleepless XII

In the company of his brethren, whose hymn-singing continued without interruption, the blessed Alexander went all the way across the desert to arrive at Solomon's city—the city he built "in the wilderness," as it says in the Book of Kings, now called Palmyra. But when, from far away, the people of the city caught sight of the brethren drawing nearer in their numbers [....], they closed the gates. "Who could possibly feed all those men?" they said to one another. "If they come into our city, then all of us will starve."

At this, the holy man gave praise to God. "Trust in the Lord is better than trust in men," he said. "Take courage, brothers, for the Lord watches over us in unsuspected ways." And [sure enough,] the barbarians of those parts showed a humanitarian concern that was unparalleled. The brethren had abided in the desert for three days when, from a distance of four days' travel, there arrived a group of camel-riders sent to them by the Lord with supplies, in accordance with what the holy one had said. To God the brethren gave praise and thanks, and let others share in the bounty. It was so much more than they needed that they found themselves distributing the goods sent to them among the poor of that city.

Some eager members of the brethren formed a plan. As consolation for their recent sufferings, they wished to bring refreshment to the brethren in their great numbers, and so they disobeyed the holy one by preparing a mixed grill for the brethren's gustatory delight. But Alexander decided to give them a lesson in sublimating their woes. As soon as the feast was all prepared, he took up the parchments of the Holy Gospel as was his custom, saying "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will toward men," which was his habitual way of taking leave. With that, he gave word that the feast be left untouched, and went back on the road. And the brethren held back from all that was laid out for them, and got back on the road. 

From The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.35-6

Alexander the Sleepless XI

All along the the Roman frontier, the blessed Alexander went strengthening everybody in their faith. He fed the poor as if they were his children, and taught the rich to do good works. His words struck them with such compunction that they brought forth the documents of their claims against their debtors, and burned them up before him. But some pestilent types, whose wealth was their plumage, rose up with their minds full of darkness and said to him, "Have you come to us to make us poor?" On these men who were so ungrateful for the gifts of God, the blessed one pronounced a curse, and at that fortified camp there was no rain for three years. 

When the cause for Alexander's anger became known to all, they went in a single-minded body to extirpate the guilty from the camp. In terror these men took refuge in the church, and tearfully begged forgiveness for their wrongs. At this, the rest of the mob were struck with fear of winding up in the same position. It was said that the blessed Alexander had shown up in Antioch, and they agonized over this, conjecturing that he had gone there to denounce them to military high command. So they went to the bishops of the Romans, that they might intervene with the blessed Alexander through letters on their behalf. And the bishops sped their letters to the blessed one, entreating him to take pity on the residents of the camp, and to plead with God on their behalf. 

The holy one cried aloud when he received their letters and learned of the community's anguish, and he spoke sorrowfully to the Lord. "Who am I, my Lord, that at my word You have visited evil on guiltless people? I shall always be grateful to You, Master, for listening to me who am a sinner. And now I beg for your compassion. Take pity on the poor, and restore their lost fruits of the past three years, that I may know Whose servant I am." [....] And it happened that in the fourth year, that camp took in a harvest like none before, just as Alexander had enjoined.

But the Lord's wrath against those pestilential men was unabated. In a matter of days, their children all died, and their herds and homes were raided by barbarians and thieves, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind that it was on account of the grief they had caused the holy man.

From The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.33-4

Alexander the Sleepless X

The blessed Alexander brought his picked disciples across the Euphrates River, and off they went into the Persian Desert. With no garments to change into, nor any provision but the parchments of the holy Scriptures, they kept up their rule of singing hymns night and day without pause, and their stay in the desert went on and on.

At this time began a trial of the disciples' fleshly needs, that the worthiest among them might be revealed. They went for many days with nothing to eat but tree-nuts, and did not break ranks until some thirty of them began to mutter against the blessed one. Just as happened to Moses, they said to Alexander, "Have you led us into this desert to die of hunger?" This was premeditated, for their secret desire was to return to the monastery—as the blessed one well knew. Thanks to the intervention of the Holy Spirit, their desire could not be dissimulated from him, who was in truth a second Moses, faithful to God in all His house. Calling them to account, and addressing them like the faithless reprobates they were, he gave them leave to return to the monastery he had left behind, saying in a great voice: "Trust me, brothers, that the Lord watches over us, and will refute your lack of faith this very day."

They had gone but a short way when the holy man's words were fulfilled by God. For it was then that He caused a detachment of Roman tribunes and soldiers to come forth, loaded with goods on God's behalf, to summon the brothers to bless their fortifications. (Between the Roman and Persian terrirories there are fortifications set to hold off the barbarians, at a distance of ten or twenty mile-markers apart from each other.) Seeing them from afar, the deserting brothers realized that it was just as the divine father had spoken, and their faith was reinforced. Some of them fell on their faces in repentance, and rejoined the brothers. The rest went away to the inner desert, where they dwelled until the end of their lives.

From The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.32-3

Alexander the Sleepless IX

Alexander made another search for what to request of God, and found in Gospel that the disciples appointed to proclaim the kingdom of our lord Jesus Christ had numbered seventy. And he asked of God that this same number of faithful zealots, capable of broadcasting the word of God to the heathen Gentiles, be appointed from his own disciples. And this too God gave him, appointing out of Alexander's disciples seventy who were powerful in faith just as the holy man had asked. 

I will tell the true story of how this came about. When his eight squadrons, arrayed in perfect faith, had with joy and gladness in their hearts been sending prayers and hymns up to God for quite some time, Alexander thought to himself and said, "Let no complacency infect this mighty suspension of earthly cares." And he returned to imposing harsh asperities upon his person, as was his way. And he convened a hundred and fifty noble soldiers of Christ who were truly armored with the breastplate of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Holy Spirit. He called each of them by name and said, "Brothers, let us test ourselves and the perfection of our faith. Let us cross that fearsome desert of the faithless, and show through our works that we believe in God with all our hearts, and not just in His word." 

The original plan was to go to Egypt, and school the faithless of that place whose trust was in [the idols of] their own handwork. And his true disciples committed wholeheartedly to following him as soon as they heard the plan. But the Holy Spirit prevented this venture, and the blessed Alexander resolved to quit the monastery without telling anyone. "I am going to look in on our brothers in the desert," he told them instead, and assigned one Trophimus, a calm and gentle holy man of God, to be their abbot. And with his usual exhortations and a prayer, he bid them all farewell and left. And then he took back off across the Euphrates River.

From The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.31-2

Alexander the Sleepless VIII

Things went on this way for seven years. Then Alexander made another inquiry into what else to ask from God, and found the prophetic words: "On the law of the Lord he will meditate day and night." He thought to himself and said, "How is that even possible?" Reason furnished the reply: "The Holy Spirit would not send us an impossible command through the oracle by any means." [....] And he devoted three years to preyer and fasting day and night, and beseeching God that this command, albeit a job for heavenly powers, might yet be fulfilled through him upon the earth. 

God was well aware of His servant's reverence and goodwill, and the burning heat of his zeal, and in His complaisance and philanthropy granted Alexander's wish, disclosing Himself visibly and saying to him: "Be the founder of what you wish for, and at your word it will stand on earth until this age comes to its end." (Alexander conveyed this to us as if it had happened to someone else, and in this he was a disciple of the blessed apostle Paul, who narrated his visionary rapture as something that befell another person.)

After this mystery was revealed to him, he sought some standard for fulfilling the command, but on seeing the weakness of human nature, he was disappointed. For he ransacked both Testaments, and scanned the greatest men of every era for someone to emulate, in order that he might fulfill his good intentions and save many souls—and found that no one on earth had ever accomplished this prodigious feat. So Alexander took the universe's Maker as his guru.

From The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.29-30