A discourse in the presence of very many clergy – presbyters, deacons, and other monastic fathers – as well as other monks who had come with them, making up a great crowd. For all of them had come to see him and to hear words of God through him. Some of them had come because of disputes, grieving and being enemies with one another because of evil matters, including thefts. For he had reckoned that it was necessary not to let them speak about the reasons they had come until the next day, desiring that there might be calm, so that the lovers of learning might listen to the things that God would give them. But when he fell silent from speaking on Saturday evening as was his custom, those people left, without having brought up at all the matters on account of which they had come. For they had been ashamed that they had been convicted through these words, which are as follows:

The responsibilities and shortcomings of Christian leaders

[…] the moment when we will receive the title “leader” and “authority,” each one according to his kind, and we all take pride in God's high offices and holy places. But we don't know what will befall us at the moment when we will render an account to God concerning all our activities. How good it would be if most of us are not put to shame and grieved on that day – let me not say that we will mourn and weep – instead of […] friendship […] in vain.

A person rejoices whenever he receives essential items that have been entrusted to him and he returns them by agreement to the person who entrusted them to him when he is asked. And a person rejoices when he stretches out to receive the things that have been entrusted to him < … Not only> does he become sad, mournful, and afraid because he has not kept the things that have been entrusted to him, but he is dragged to the halls of justice, clothed in shame, afraid, and filled with turmoil, conceiving no way to escape.