They said of a certain elder that for fifty years he had eaten no bread and did not readily drink wine. He would say, ‘I have killed fornication, love of money, and vainglory.’ Abba Abraham heard that he had said this and came to him. He said to him, ‘Did you say this?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ Abba Abraham said to him, ‘Suppose you enter your cell and find a woman on your mat. Can you think that she is not a woman?’ He said, ‘No, but I fight against the thought so that I do not touch her.’ Abba Abraham said, ‘Then you have not killed it. The passion is alive, but it is bound. Again, as you are walking, you see stones and broken pottery, with gold among them. Can your mind regard the gold in the same way as the others?’ He said, ‘No, but I fight against the thought so that I do not take it.’ The elder said, ‘See, it is alive, but it is bound.’ Again Abba Abraham said, ‘Suppose you hear about two brothers: one loves you, while the other hates you and speaks evil of you. If they come to you, do you treat the two equally?’ He said, ‘No, but I fight against the thought so that I may do good to the one who hates me just as to the one who loves me.’ Abba Abraham said to him, ‘So the passions are alive; they are only bound by the saints.’
A brother asked Abba Abraham, ‘If I find myself eating often, what does that mean?’ The elder answered, ‘What are you saying, brother? Do you eat so much? Or do you think you have come to a threshing floor?’
Abba Abraham said of one of the men of Scetis that he was a scribe and did not eat bread. A brother came and asked him to copy a book for him. The elder, whose mind was fixed on contemplation, wrote it with some lines omitted and did not punctuate it. The brother took it and, wanting to add the punctuation, found that some passages were missing. He said to the elder, ‘Abba, some lines are missing.’ The elder said to him, ‘Go. First do what is written, and then come back, and I will write the rest for you.’