Some came once to make Abba Isaac a priest. When he heard, he fled into Egypt. He went to a field and hid among the grass. The Fathers pursued him, and when they reached that same field they stopped to rest for a little while, because it was night. They let the donkey loose to graze. The donkey went and stood beside the elder. In the morning, while looking for the donkey, they found Abba Isaac as well, and they were amazed. They wanted to bind him, but he would not allow it, saying, “I will not run away any more. It is God’s will, and wherever I flee, I come back to this.”
Abba Isaac said, “When I was younger, I lived with Abba Cronius. He never told me to do any work, although he was old and trembling. Instead, he would get up by himself and bring the water jug to me and to everyone else alike. I also lived with Abba Theodore of Pherme, and he too never told me to do anything. He would set the table himself and say, ‘Brother, if you wish, come and eat.’ I would say to him, ‘Abba, I came to you so that I might benefit. Why do you not tell me to do anything?’ But the elder remained completely silent. So I went and told the elders. They came to him and said, ‘Abba, the brother came to your holiness to benefit. Why do you not tell him to do something?’ The elder said to them, ‘Am I the head of a monastery, that I should give him orders? For my part, I tell him nothing. But if he wishes, he will do what he sees me doing.’ From then on, I would anticipate whatever the elder was about to do and do it. Whatever he himself did, he did in silence; and this taught me to work in silence.”
Abba Isaac and Abba Abraham lived together. Abba Abraham came in and found Abba Isaac weeping. He said to him, “Why are you weeping?” The elder replied, “Why should we not weep? Where are we to go? Our Fathers have fallen asleep. Our handiwork was not enough to pay the boat fares when we went to visit the elders. Now we have been orphaned. That is why I too am weeping.”
Abba Isaac said, “I know a brother who was reaping in a field. He wanted to eat an ear of wheat and said to the owner of the field, ‘Will you allow me to eat one ear of wheat?’ The owner heard this and was amazed. He said to him, ‘The field is yours, Father, and you ask me?’ That was how strict the brother was with himself.”
He also said to the brothers, “Do not bring boys here. Four churches in Scetis have become deserted because of boys.”
They said of Abba Isaac that he ate the ash from the censer of the offering with his bread.
Abba Isaac said to the brothers, “Our Fathers, and Abba Pambo, wore old, much-patched garments and palm-fiber clothes; but now you wear costly clothes. Go away from here; you have made these places desolate.” When he was about to go to the harvest, he said to them, “I no longer give you commands, for you do not keep them.”
One of the Fathers related that once a brother wearing a small cowl came to the church of the Cells in the time of Abba Isaac. The elder drove him away, saying, “This place is for monks. You are a layman, and you cannot remain here.”
Abba Isaac said, “I have never brought into my cell a thought against a brother who had grieved me. And I have also made every effort not to leave a brother in his cell with a thought against me.”
Abba Isaac became seriously ill, and the illness lasted a long time. The brother made him a little gruel and put some sebesten fruit in it, but the elder would not taste it. The brother begged him, saying, “Take a little, Abba, because of your illness.” The elder said to him, “Truly, brother, I would be willing to spend thirty years in this illness.”
They said of Abba Isaac that when he was about to die, the elders gathered around him and said, “What shall we do after you, Father?” He said, “See how I have walked before you. If you too are willing to follow and keep the commandments of God, He will send His grace and preserve this place. But if you do not keep them, you will not remain in this place. We too were grieved when our Fathers were about to die; but by keeping the commandments of the Lord and their instructions, we have stood firm as though they were still with us. Do the same, and you will be saved.”
Abba Isaac said that Abba Pambo used to say, “A monk’s garment should be such that he could throw it outside his cell for three days and no one would take it.”