In the case of a person who has attained to this converse of contemplation in his ascetic way of life

(For) during the time of the night, more than at any other time | he should be cut off from everyone and left solitary | in order that stillness may be added to stillness in his soul. | For our Saviour too, during the night times, chose deserted places | besides, He honoured and loved stillness at all times | saying ‘Let us go to the wilderness to rest by ourselves’ | and ‘He sat down in a boat and went to a deserted region with his disciples’, etc. | It was especially at these times that He drew Himself away from people and remained in stillness. | Not that He had any need to do this, seeing that He is capable in every place of everything | but even so He nevertheless did not spend the nights at all in inhabited places. | ‘He went up to a mountain alone to pray, and when it grew dark He was there alone’. | For the instruction of the children of light | who would travel afterwards in His footsteps following this new mode of life. | He carried out this solitary converse with God. | This (converse) which the heavenly ranks alone possess | was also made known to human beings in the Son of God | who came down to their abode and indicated to them concerning the ministry of invisible beings | whose task is that they should be stirred by praises of God in that great stillness which is spread over their world | so that, resulting from these (praises) they might be raised up | in contemplation towards that glorious Nature of the Trinity | and remain in wonder at the vision of the majesty of that ineffable glory. | 12.1, pp. 63-4