Laudator Temporis Acti

Jerome, Life of Hilarion 28 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 23, cols. 43-44; Sources Chrétiennes, vol. 508, pp. 262, 264 [with different numbering, 18.2-8, instead of 28]; tr. Carolinne White):

Finally, because Hilarion found that one of the brothers who lived about five miles away from him was excessively careful and anxious in tending his little garden and had saved a little money, he had driven him from his sight. The brother wanted to be reconciled with the old man and so he came often to the brothers, especially to Hesychius, of whom Hilarion was very fond. One day, then, he brought with him a basket of green peas just as they were in their pods. Hesychius placed the basket on the table in the evening, but the old man cried out, saying that he could not bear the smell, and asked where it came from. When Hesychius answered that a brother had brought the monks the first fruits of his little garden, Hilarion said, 'Do you not notice this foul smell and the stink of greed in these peas? Throw them to the cattle, throw them to the brute animals, and see whether they will eat them.' When Hesychius put them in the manger as he had been told, the cattle were terrified and mooed more loudly than usual; they broke the ropes tethering them and stampeded off in all directions. For the old man had a spiritual gift which enabled him, from the smell of bodies or clothes or other things anyone had touched, to recognize which demon or vice was holding that person in its grip.

Denique unum de fratribus in quinto fere a se milliario manentem, quia comperiebat hortuli sui nimis cautum timidumque custodem, et pauxillum habere nummorum, ab oculis abegerat. Qui volens sibi reconciliari senem, frequenter veniebat ad fratres, et maxime ad Hesychium, quo ille vehementissime delectabatur. Quadam igitur die ciceris fascem virentis, sicut in herbis erat detulit. Quem cum Hesychius posuisset in mensa ad vesperum, exclamavit senex, se putorem ejus ferre non posse, simulque unde esset rogavit. Respondente autem Hesychio, quod frater quidam primitias ageli sui fratribus detulisset. Non sentis, inquit, putorem teterrimum, et in cicere fœtere avaritiam? Mitte bubus, mitte brutis animalibus, et vide an comedant. Quod cum ille juxta præceptum in præsepe posuisset, exterriti boves et plus solito mugientes, ruptis vinculis in diversa fugerunt. Habebat enim senex hanc gratiam, ut ex odore corporum vestiumque, et earum rerum quas quis tetigerat, sciret cui dæmoni, vel cui vitio subjaceret.