The Vision and a Saying of Abba George the Recluse
Scythopolis was the second city of Palestine. There I met Abba Anastasios, who told us about Abba George the recluse.
One night, I got up to beat the wooden signal (for I was the precentor), and I heard an elder weeping. I went and entreated him, saying, "Abba, what is the matter, sir, that you weep so?" He answered me not a word. So I asked him again, "Tell me the cause of your grief." Sighing from the depths of his heart, he said to me, "How should I not weep, seeing that our Lord is not willing to be placated on our account? I thought I stood before one who sat on a high throne, my child."
Around him were several tens of thousands who besought and entreated him concerning a certain matter, but he would not be persuaded. Then a woman clothed in purple raiment came and fell down before him, saying, "Please, for my sake, grant this request," but he remained equally unmoved. "That is why I weep and groan, for I am afraid of what is going to happen to me." He said this to me at first light on Thursday.
The next day, Friday, about the ninth hour, there was a severe earthquake that overthrew the cities of the Phoenician coast. Abba Anastasios spoke to us again and told us this about the same elder: Some time later, as he stood at the window of his cell, he began to weep and said to me, "Woe are we, brother, for we have no compunction, but live heedlessly. I fear we are at the gates of perdition and that the wrath of God has overtaken us." The next day, fire appeared in the sky.