"Three old men came to see Abba Sisoes, having heard about him. The first said to him, 'Father, how shall I save myself from the river of fire [(τοῦ πυρίνου ποταμοῦ; cf. Dn 7:10 on the ποταμὸς πυρός)]?' He did not answer him. The second said to him, 'Father, how can I be saved from the gnashing of teeth [(Mt 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30; Lk 13:28)] and the worm which dieth not [(Mk 9:48)]?' The third said, 'Father, what shall I do, for the remembrance of the outer darkness [(Mt 8:12; 22:13; 25:30)] is killing me?' By way of reply the old man said to them, 'For my part, I do not keep in mind the remembrance of any of these things, for God is compassionate and I hope [(ἐλπίζω)] that he will show me his mercy.' Hearing this, the old men went back offended. But the old man, not wishing to let them go away hurt, said to them, 'Blessed are you, my brothers; truly I envy you. The first speaks of the river of fire, the second of hell [(τοῦ Ταρτάρου; cf. Jb 40:20, 41:24, and Pr 30:16 LXX; 2 Pt 3:4)] and the third of darkness. Now if your spirit is filled with such remembrances, it is impossible for you to sin. What shall I do, then? I who am hard of heart and to whom it has not been granted so much as to know whether there is a punishment for men [(ὅτι κἀν ἐστι κόλασις τοῖς ἁνθρώποις; cf. Mt 25:46 on κόλασιν αἰώνιον)]; no doubt it is because of this that I am sinning all the time.' They prostrated themselves before him and said, 'Now we have seen exactly that of which we have heard tell.'"
Abba Sisoes 19 (PG 65, col. 397). This one doesn't appear in the Collection systématique (SC 387, 474, and 498), or, at least, not in the Concordance (SC 498, pp. 217 ff.) under Sisoès. The desert Christian: sayings of the Desert Fathers: the alphabetical collection, trans. Benedicta Ward (New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1975), 216-217. Given the clear quotations of and allusions to Scripture, Sisoes' two responses can't represent as straightforward an agnosticism as they seem to at first glance. Note that in Daniel the context is a sitting of the divine court in judgment and an opening of the books. I have not looked beyond Daniel for this "river of fire" imagery, though the references to a "lake of fire" in the Apocalypse (among the uses of fire for judgment generally) cannot be irrelevant.
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"Three old men came to see Abba Sisoes, having heard about him. The first said to him, 'Father, how shall I save myself from the river of fire?' He did not answer him. The second said to him, 'Father, how can I be saved from the gnashing of teeth and the worm which dieth not?' The third said, 'Father, what shall I do, for the remembrance of the outer darkness is killing me?' By way of reply the old man said to them, 'For my part, I do not keep in mind the remembrance of any of these things, for God is compassionate and I hope that he will show me his mercy.' Hearing this, the old men went back offended. But the old man, not wishing to let them go away hurt, said to them, 'Blessed are you, my brothers; truly I envy you. The first speaks of the river of fire, the second of hell and the third of darkness. Now if your spirit is filled with such remembrances, it is impossible for you to sin. What shall I do, then? I who am hard of heart and to whom it has not been granted so much as to know whether there is a punishment for men; no doubt it is because of this that I am sinning all the time.' They prostrated themselves before him and said, 'Now we have seen exactly that of which we have heard tell.'"
For searchability:
"Three old men came to see Abba Sisoes, having heard about him. The first said to him, 'Father, how shall I save myself from the river of fire?' He did not answer him. The second said to him, 'Father, how can I be saved from the gnashing of teeth and the worm which dieth not?' The third said, 'Father, what shall I do, for the remembrance of the outer darkness is killing me?' By way of reply the old man said to them, 'For my part, I do not keep in mind the remembrance of any of these things, for God is compassionate and I hope that he will show me his mercy.' Hearing this, the old men went back offended. But the old man, not wishing to let them go away hurt, said to them, 'Blessed are you, my brothers; truly I envy you. The first speaks of the river of fire, the second of hell and the third of darkness. Now if your spirit is filled with such remembrances, it is impossible for you to sin. What shall I do, then? I who am hard of heart and to whom it has not been granted so much as to know whether there is a punishment for men; no doubt it is because of this that I am sinning all the time.' They prostrated themselves before him and said, 'Now we have seen exactly that of which we have heard tell.'"
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