Chapter IV.

Of the miracle which Abbot Abraham wrought on the breasts of a woman.

Why also need I mention the acts of Abbot Abraham,  268  Possibly the same person as the author of Conference xxiv., but nothing further appears to be known of him. who was surnamed ἁπλοῦς, i.e., the simple, from the simplicity of his life and his innocence. This man when he had gone from the desert to Egypt for the harvest in the season of Quinquagesima  269  i.e. the fifty days from Easter to Whitsuntide; cf. the note on the Institutes, II. xviii. was pestered with tears and prayers by a woman who brought her little child, already pining away and half dead from lack of milk; he gave her a cup of water to drink signed with the sign of the cross; and when she had drunk it at once most marvellously her breasts that had been till then utterly dry flowed with a copious abundance of milk.