Chapter XXXI.

How when Abbot Pinufius was brought back to his monastery he stayed there for a little while and then fled again into the regions of Syrian Palestine.

And when he had stopped there for a little while, again he was seized with a longing and desire for humility, and, taking advantage of the silence of night, made his escape in such a way that this time he sought no neighbouring district, but regions which were unknown and strange and separated by a wide distance. For embarking in a ship he managed to travel to Palestine, believing that he would more securely lie hid if he betook himself to those places in which his name had never been heard. And when he had come thither, at once he sought out our own monastery155 On Cassian’s connection with the monastery at Bethlehem, see the Introduction. which was at no great distance from the cave156 On the Cave of the Nativity, see Justin Martyr Dialogue with Trypho, c. lxxviii. Origen against Celsus, I. c. li. in which our Lord vouchsafed to be born of a virgin. And though he concealed himself here for some time, yet like “a city set on an hill”157 S. Matt. v. 14. (to use our Lord’s expression) he could not long be hid. For presently some of the brethren who had come to the holy places from Egypt to pray there recognized him and recalled him with most fervent prayers to his own Cœnobium.