The Desert Fathers.....redux

OK, as promised, a couple of passages from the Desert Fathers (and Mothers) [Penguin Classics] demonstrating that they definitely took asceticism, self-denial and punishment far too seriously, warping every natural human instinct, behaviour and desire into monstrous and entirely selfish aberrations:

'A brother was leaving the world, and though he gave his goods to the poor he kept some for his own use. He went to Antony, and when Antony knew what he had done, he said, 'If you want to be a monk, go to the village over there, buy some meat, hang it on your naked body and come back here.' The brother went, and dogs and birds tore at his body. He came back to Antony, who asked him if he had done what he was told. He showed him his torn body. Then Antony said, 'Those who renounce the world but want to keep their money are attacked in that same way by demons and torn in pieces.'

'Once one of the hermits lay gravely ill, and was loosing a lot of blood from his bowels. A brother brought him some dried fruit and stewed it, and offered it to him saying, 'Eat; perhaps it will do you good.' The hermit looked at him for a long time, and said, 'I want you to know that I wish God would leave me my sickness for thirty years more.' In his weakness he absolutely refused to take even a little food; so the brother took away what he had brought, and returned to his cell.'

'Once a brother went to visit his sister who was ill in a nunnery. She was someone of great faith. She herself had never agreed to see a man nor did she want to give her brother occasion for coming into the company of women. She commanded him, 'Go away, brother, and pray for me, for by God's grace I shall see you in the kingdom of heaven.''