Joseph of Panephysis

Abba Joseph of Panephysis was one of the Desert Fathers quoted in the Apophthegmata Patrum (Sayings of the Desert Fathers).

Quotes

Wortley, John (2014). Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Yonkers, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 978-0-88141-497-4. 

• Abba Poemen said to Abba Joseph: “Tell me how I may become a monk.”
  Said the elder to him: “If you want to find repose both here and there, say in every situation: ‘I, who am I?’ and do not pass judgment on anybody.”
  • Saying 2

• Abba Joseph said to Abba Lot: “You cannot become a monk unless you become altogether like a flaming fire.”
  • Saying 6

• Abba Lot visited Abba Joseph and said to him: “Abba, to the best of my ability I do my little synaxis, my little fasting; praying, meditating, and maintaining hesychia; and I purge my logismoi to the best of my ability. What else then can I do?”
  The elder stood up and stretched out his hands to heaven; his fingers became like ten lamps of fire.
  He said to him: “If you are willing, become altogether like fire.”
  • Saying 7

• A brother asked Abba Joseph: “I want to come out of the coenobion and live alone.”
  The elder said to him: “Stay wherever you see your soul experiencing repose and not being damaged.”
  The brother said to him: “I experience repose both in the coenobion and living alone; what do you want me to do?”
  The elder said to him: “If you experience repose both in the coenobion and living alone, put your two logismoi as though in a balance and do that which is the more likely to be to your benefit and [to which] your logismos prompts you.”
  • Saying 8