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Life of St Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza
Mark the Deacon, tr. Hill, 1913
Chapter 17
But he enjoined us to depart with all speed, and when we had spent one other day we departed.1 And we slept at Diospolis, and thence we came late at night and slowly into Gaza, being exceeding weary and afflicted. And the cause of the affliction was this. Hard by Gaza there are villages beside the road which are given to the madness of idols. So the dwellers in these villages agreed together and strewed all the road with thorns and prickles, so that one could not pass by, and poured out filth, and made smoke of other evil-smelling things, so that we were choked by the stench and went in peril of being blinded. Hardly escaping therefore, about the third hour of the night we entered into the city.2 Now this vexation was caused to the blessed man by a visitation of demons; but it vexed him not, for he knew it to be an ambush of the devil, because he desired to turn away the just man from his entering in.
Notes
- we departed. March 20, 395. The reason for haste was that they should be at Gaza for Easter (March 25).
- we entered into the city. March 21, 395.