You have heard from many all about the blessed Innocent, the priest of the Mount of Olives. Nevertheless you will also hear from us, who lived with him for three years.
He was simple beyond measure. Once he had been one the palace dignitaries in the early days of Emperor Constantius. This Innocent was so kindhearted that I shall seem silly when I tell the truth. Often he himself stole from the brethren and gave it to those in need. He was extremely guileless and simple and was deemed worthy of the gift of power against demons.
Once we ourselves saw brought to him a young man who was paralyzed and possessed. I reprimanded the young man’s mother for bringing him, as I doubted he could be cured. Meanwhile the old man chanced to come up and see her standing there weeping and bewailing the unspeakable misfortune of her son. Then the venerable old man wept; deeply moved, he took the young man into the shrine which he himself had erected and in which were kept the relics of St. John the Baptist. And he prayed over the young man from the third to the ninth hour and then returned him healed to his mother the same day, as he had driven out both the paralysis and the demon.
Palladius
Historia Lausiaca, 44.1,3-4
