Who can read in Lipomanus-tom. v.-the unhappy fall of James the hermit, and not be seized with wonder and amazement? This man was threescore years old, forty of which he had spent in continual austerities; he was even famous for the many miracles he had wrought, and God had given him the power of casting out devils. Having one day cured a young woman who was possessed by the devil, and finding that the persons who brought her to him were afraid to take her home with them, for fear the devil should repossess her, he consented that she should stay some time with him. Now because he was too confident and presumed too much upon his own strength, God permitted him to fall into the sin of fornication with her. And as one sin ordinarily draws on another, fear of being discovered made him murder her and throw her body into a river. To conclude all, despairing of God’s mercy, he left his solitary way of living, went into the world again, and gave himself over to all manner of wickedness, till at last entering into himself, he merited by a severe penance of ten years to be restored to the state and perfection from which he had fallen, and to be canonized for a saint after his death.

‘The Practice of Christian & Religious Perfection III’ by Father Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J.