Pinufius Flees Again, to Palestine

When he had stayed there a little while, he was again seized by a longing and desire for humility. Taking advantage of the silence of the night, he escaped, and this time he did not look for a neighboring district but for regions that were unknown and strange and far away. He boarded a ship and managed to reach Palestine, believing that he could hide more securely if he went to places where his name had never been heard. When he arrived there, he at once sought out our own monastery, which was not far from the cave in which our Lord was pleased to be born of a virgin. And though he hid himself here for some time, yet, like “a city set on a hill” (to use our Lord’s expression), he could not stay hidden long. For soon some of the brothers who had come from Egypt to the holy places to pray there recognized him, and with the most fervent pleas they called him back to his own coenobium. [a]