Abba Benjamin said, “When we came down to Scetis after the harvest, they brought us an offering from Alexandria, one plaster-sealed vessel containing a sextarius of oil for each of us. When harvest time came again, the brothers would bring to the church whatever remained. I had not opened my vessel, but I pierced it with a needle and poured out a little, and my heart thought that I had done something great. But when the brothers brought their own vessels still plaster-sealed just as they were, while mine was pierced, I was as ashamed as if I had committed fornication.”
Abba Benjamin, the priest of the Cells, said, “We came to Scetis to a certain elder and wanted to give him a little oil. He said to us, ‘Look, there is the little vessel you brought me three years ago. It has remained just as you placed it.’ When we heard this, we marveled at the elder’s way of life.”
The same Abba Benjamin said, “We went to another elder, and he kept us to eat. He set radish oil before us. We said to him, ‘Father, put a little good oil before us instead.’ When he heard this, he made the sign of the cross and said, ‘I do not know whether there is any other oil besides this.’”
As Abba Benjamin was dying, he said to his sons, “Do these things and you can be saved: rejoice always; pray without ceasing; give thanks in everything.”
The same Abba Benjamin said, “Travel the royal road, measure the miles, and do not be negligent.”