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AND so he took his staff and scrip, as is there the custom for all
monks starting on a journey, and himself led us as guide of our road to his
own city, i.e., Panephysis, the lands of which and indeed the greater part
of the neighbouring region (formerly an extremely rich one since from it,
as report says, everything was supplied for the royal table), had been
covered by the sea which was disturbed by a sudden earthquake and
overflowed its banks, and so (almost all the villages being in ruins)
covered what were formerly rich lands with salt marshes, so that you might
think that what is spiritually sung in the psalm was a literal prophecy of
that region. "He hath turned rivers into a wilderness; and the Springs of
waters into a thirsty land: a fruitful land into saltness for the
wickedness of them that dwell therein." In these districts then many
towns perched in this way on the higher hills were deserted by their
inhabitants and turned by the inundation into islands, and these afforded
the desired solitude to the holy anchorites, among whom three old men;
viz., Chaeremon, Nesteros and Joseph, stood out as anchorites of the
longest standing.
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