The Difficult Story of Ptolemy

The Difficult Story of Ptolemy
from Palladios

Now, again, another man, whose name was Ptolemy and whose virtuous life is difficult for one to recount, lived, at first, as an ascetic far from the skete, in a place called "Klimax" [the place of the ladder], in which no other monk until then had been able to live, since it lay some eighteen semeia from a well with water. Ptolemy, however, had acquired some clay pots, and with a sponge he would collect the dew which came down in that isolated place during the night, in December and January, and would place it in the pots.

Under these difficult conditions, he remained in that place for fifteen years, during which time he encountered no one else. He became estranged, therefore, from every benefit of instruction and from any association with the Holy Fathers, and was deprived of the continuous partaking of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. The result of this estrangement was that he fell into such a great mania, and was so diverted from the straight path, as to fall into the impious theory of automatism. In other words, the devil tricked him into believing and proclaiming that all the different things of the world are not creations of God, but simply exist, having been created adventitiously.

Thus, once the Enemy of the life of all had put this foolish delusion into Ptolemy's mind, it afterwards entirely entered into his soul. He then said to him: "Since everything is by chance and nothing exists by intention, why do you torture yourself needlessly? In what will you be benefited, since there is no reward after death? What reward worthy of your so many difficult labors can there be for you? And who is it who will repay you? Moreover, what is this judgement that the Scriptures threaten, since everything exists without any purpose?"

When the wretched Ptolemy became utterly possessed by these satanic thoughts, he abandoned asceticism, as they say, "lost it", and went mad. To this day, he wanders around Egypt aimlessly, given over to gluttony and drinking wine, without talking to anyone. He walks up and down the marketplace silently, a wretched and lamentable sight in the eyes of Christians, but also the object of insulting curses and ridicule from those who do not know our way of life. Such an incurable calamity befell the pitiable Ptolemy because of his irrational pride, thinking himself to have understanding greater than all of the Holy Fathers, to the end that he never associated with them, that he might benefit from their teachings and govern his life with their teachings. He became intransigent and for this reason tumbled down into the darkest depths of spiritual death. For all those who do not govern their lives as they should will fall, just as leaves fall from a tree.