CHAPTER IV.

Of the miracle which Abbot Abraham wrought on the breasts of a woman.

WHY also need I mention the acts of Abbot Abraham,⁸⁶⁸⁸⁶⁸    Possibly the same person as the author of Conference xxiv., but nothing further appears to be known of him. who was surnamed `aplous, i.e., the simple, from the simplicity of his life and his innocence. This man when he had gone from the desert to Egypt for the harvest in the season of Quinquagesima⁸⁶⁹⁸⁶⁹    I.e., the fifty days from Easter to Whitsuntide; cf. the note on the Institutes, II. xviii. was pestered with tears and prayers by a woman who brought her little child, already pining away and half dead from lack of milk; he gave her a cup of water to drink signed with the sign of the cross; and when she had drunk it at once most marvellously her breasts that had been till then utterly dry flowed with a copious abundance of milk.