The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 109Of the abstinence of one old man who took food six times so sparingly that he was still hungry.

When one of the elders was pressing me to eat a little more as I was taking refreshment, and I said that I could not, he replied: "I have already laid my table six times for different brethren who had arrived, and, pressing each of them, I partook of food with him, and am still hungry, and do you, who now partake of refreshment for the first time, say that you cannot eat any more?"