Abba Zosimos the Cilician said: When I was a young man, I left Mt. Sinai and went to Ammoniac to stay there in a cell. There I found an elder dressed in a short-sleeved shirt of palm-fibre. When the elder saw me, before greeting me, he said, “Why have you come here, Zosimos? Get away from here. You cannot stay in this place.” I thought he knew me. I made a prostration before him saying, “Of your charity, elder, whence do you know me?” He said to me,
“Two days ago, a being appeared to me who said, ‘A monk is coming to you whose name is Zosimos. Do not allow him to stay here. It is my will to entrust him the church of the Egyptian Babylon (Old Cairo – CJH).’ He fell silent and left me, going about a stone’s throw from me. There he spent some two hours in prayer. Then he came back to me and kissed me on the forehead, saying, “Naturally, child, you are welcome, for God has brought you here to bury my body.” I asked him, “How many years have you been here, abba?” “I am completing my forty-fifth year,” he replied. It looked to me as though his face were of fire. He said to me, “Peace be with you, child; pray for me.” And with that, the servant of the Lord lay down and fell asleep. I dug a grave and buried him. Two days later I went on my way, glorifying God.
John Moschus, Leimonarion (The Spiritual Meadow) 123
