The Wondrous Deed of David, the Egyptian
Abba Theodore the Cilician said: When I was staying at Scété, there was an elder there called David. One day he went out with some other monks to reap. The Scetiotes have this custom of going out to the estates to reap. The elder went to an estate and offered himself for hire on a day-to-day basis. A farmer hired him, and as the elder was reaping around the sixth hour, it was very hot. So the elder entered a shack and sat down. When the farmer came and saw him sitting there, he said to him angrily, “Elder, why are you not reaping? Do you not realize that I am paying you?”
He replied, “Yes, but the heat is so intense that the grains of wheat are falling out of the husks. I am waiting a little for the heat to abate so that you suffer no loss.” The farmer said to him, “Get up and work, even if everything bursts into flames.” The elder responded, “Do you want it all to burn?” The farmer angrily rejoined, “Isn’t that what I said?”
The elder stood up, and suddenly the field began to burn. In fear, the farmer went to the other part of the field where the other elders were reaping. He begged them to come and intercede with the elder for him, to pray that the fire might cease. They came and made an act of obeisance to the elder, who said, “But he himself said that it should burn.” Yet they were able to convince him.
He went and stood between the part of the field that was burning and the part that remained unscathed. He offered a prayer, and immediately the fire in the field was extinguished. The rest of the crop was saved. Everybody was amazed and glorified God.