Now the handmaiden of Christ Pœmenia came unto the blessed man and begged that she might see him, but the blessed man would not allow her to do so; and he sent unto her other spiritual words to give her consolation, and he commanded her that when she was going down from the Thebaïd she should not turn aside to Alexandria, saying, that if she did so, she would certainly fall into temptations. But Pœmenia, forgetting this [advice] and never letting it enter her mind [again], turned aside to Alexandria that she might see the city, and on the way, by the side of the city Nicius, she stopped her ship that she might rest herself. And when her servants had disembarked, through some untoward circumstance strife broke out between them and the people of the country, who were truculent men, and they cut off a finger of one believing man, and another they killed, and without knowing it they drowned the holy Bishop Dionysius in the river. And they made the venerable woman to endure many revilings and threatened to do much violence unto her; and they beat all her servants with many severe stripes, and they would hardly allow them to proceed on their way.
Chapter l: Of the Blessed Man Possidonius
NOW the things which [are narrated] concerning the holy man Possidonius the Theban are so many that it is impossible to describe them all; he was so gentle, and gracious, and patient, and enduring, and his soul had so much goodness in it that I do not know that I ever met another man who was like unto him. For I lived with him in Bethlehem for a year, at the time he was living beyond the Monastery of the Shepherds, which was close to the town, and I observed in him many qualities of excellence, of which I will relate [an example of] one or two. He told me one day when I was living by the side of Porphyrites, [saying], “I have not spoken to a man for a whole year, and I have not heard the speech of one. I have not eaten bread, but the insides of palm leaves soaked in water and, whenever I could find it, wild honey. Once, however, the time came when these things failed me, and I was in sore tribulation because of it. And I went forth from the cave that I might go to the habitations of men, and having journeyed on the whole day I was scarcely two miles distant from the cave. And I turned [and looked] behind me, and I saw, as it were, a horseman whose appearance resembled that of a knight, and he had upon his head the similitude of a helmet, and thinking that he was a Roman I turned back to the cave, and I found outside it a basket of grapes and new, ripe figs, and I took them and went with
