In Egypt there lived a hermit monk. And so the demon, after many years of struggle with him, promised him that he would no longer oppress him with any temptations, as long as he committed one sin out of three. He suggested the following three sins: murder, fornication and drunkenness. “Do,” he said, “any one of them: either kill a person, or commit fornication, or get drunk once - and then you will remain in peace, and after that I will no longer tempt you with any temptations.” The hermit thought to himself this way: “To kill a person is terrible, for this is in itself a great evil, and deserves the death penalty both by God’s court and by civil law. To commit fornication, shame, to destroy the previously preserved purity of the body is a pity, and it is disgusting to defile one who has not yet known this defilement. To get drunk once seems to be a small sin, for a person is soon sobered up by sleep. So, I will go and get drunk so that the demon no longer oppresses me, and I will live peacefully in the desert.” And so, taking his handicrafts, he went to the city and, having sold them, entered the tavern and got drunk. By satanic action, he happened to talk with a certain shameless and adulterous woman. Being seduced, he fell with her. When he was committing a sin with her, the woman’s husband came and, finding him sinning with his wife, began to beat him, and he, having recovered, began to fight with that husband and, having overcome him, killed him. Thus, that hermit committed all three sins: fornication and murder, starting with drunkenness. Whatever sins he feared and abhorred when sober, he boldly committed while drunk and through this ruined his many years of work. Was it only later through true repentance that he was able to find them again, for by the mercy of God a man who truly repents is returned to his former merits, which he destroyed through the Fall. Source: works of St. Dmitry Rostovsky
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru