Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

562 THE HISTORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
Gospel in all the earth, and many of the heathen
were baptized in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; and churches
were built in all the earth, and monks increased
in every country. Now there was a certain monk
GerSBimas Called Gerasimas' who lived in a cave beyond the
relds '""thejordan, and he took the Book of King Alexander
Travels °'^ aud read therein, and came to the story of those
'
Alexander.
J
blessed saints. And he meditated in his heart
and said, "O my Lord Jesus Christ, I beseech
"and entreat Thee to bring me to them, and to
"shew me the faces of those blessed saints who
"are Thy servants. As Thou didst shew to Jacob
"the face of his son Joseph in the land of Egypt,
"and he rejoiced thereat, even so do Thou shew
"me the faces of those blessed saints that I also
"may rejoice thereat, and may receive their prayer
He prays for "and their blessing." And he continued to pray
permission /-^iai'i ^ J
to visit the and to entreat God Almighty for this thing for
Blessed. '
^ forty days and forty nights, and He accepted the
prayer and entreaty of Abba Gerasimas, and sent
unto him an angel from heaven who said unto
him, "Set out on this journey. Turn neither to
"this side nor to that, but go straight on." And
Abba Gerasimas marched on [p. 361] for seven
He sets out. wccks, and his food was of the green herb of the
desert, and he became aweary by reason of
' /. e., Gerasimus of Lydia, who died about A. D. 475.
He founded a monastery near the Jordan wherein seventy
monks dwelt under a very strict rule.