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So the brother went to the city and tried to sell it, and finding a purchaser, he asked thirteen pieces of silver for it. The purchaser said to him, ‘Lend it to me, first, so that I may examine it, then I will give you a price.’ So he gave it to him. Taking it, the purchaser brought it to Abba Gelasius for him to examine it and told him the price which the seller had set. The old man said to him, ‘Buy it, for it is beautiful, and worth the price you tell me.’ This man when he returned, said something quite different to the seller, and not what the old man had said to him. ‘I have shown it to Abba Gelasius,’ he said, ‘and he replied that it was dear, and not worth the price you said.’ Hearing this, he asked, ‘Didn’t the old man say anything else?’ ‘No,’ he replied. Then the seller said, ‘I do not want to sell it any more.’
Filled with compunction, he went to find the old man, to do penance and ask him to take his book back. But he did not wish to make good his loss. So the brother said to him, ‘If you do not take it back, I shall have no peace.’ The old man answered, ‘If you won’t have any peace, then I will take it back.’ So the brother stayed there until his death, edified by the old man’s way of life.