Abba Daniel said that Abba Arsenius told us as though he wer...

Abba Daniel said that Abba Arsenius told us as though he were speaking of somebody else (but it may well have been he) that while an elder was residing in his cell, a voice came to him that said: “Come, I will show you the works of folk.” [The elder] got up and went out; [the voice] brought him to a place and showed him a burnt-faced-one cutting wood and making a great bundle. He attempted to carry it but could not. But instead of taking away from it, he cut some more wood then added it to the bundle—and he was doing this for a long time. When he had gone a little further he also showed him a person standing in a lake, drawing water from it and pouring it into a receptacle with holes in it: the same water was running out into the lake. He spoke to him again: “Come on, I will show you something else;” then he saw a temple and two persons on horseback carrying a piece of wood crossways, one beside the other. They wanted to enter through the gate but could not because the piece of wood was crossways. One would not humble himself to carry the wood lengthwise behind the other; for that reason they remained outside the gate. “These are they,” he said, “who bear the yoke of righteousness with pride and did not humble themselves to put their house in order and to travel the humble way of Christ; so they remain outside the Kingdom of God. The one cutting wood is a man beset by many sins; instead of repenting, he adds other transgressions on top of his sins. And the one drawing water is a person who does good works but, because he has an evil mixture in him, for this he lost his good deeds too. So every one must keep a watch over his works, lest he toil in vain.”

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The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Abba Arsenius, §33.