THE LIFE OF ABBA ZOSIMOS THE CILICIAN
When I was staying at Mount Sinai, I met Abba Zosimos the Cilician there. This elder renounced episcopal office and returned to his cell. He was greatly advanced in asceticism, and this is what he told me:
"When I was a young man, I left Mount Sinai and went to Ammoniac to stay 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 with the church of the Egyptian Babylon—Cairo.”'
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 my way, glorifying God.