At the beginning five holy fathers resided here: they were Syrians and each of them received the next, before the time of our holy father John’s arrival to this place. He was the one who built this holy place, and later became metropolite of Caesarea of Straton. Indeed, the first (Syrian anchorite) made a very small cell, that is now the diaconicon of the lower small church, called St. Stephen’s: in this cell (the Syrian anchorites) received each other in succession. They also built the small chapel of Saint Stephen and the building where their holy relics now rest in God: all the rest of the holy monastery was built by our holy father John. <The same anecdote as in Pratum. ch. 25, is related here, but the story is assigned to the fourth and fifth of the Syrian anchorites, Aias and his young disciple Zenon.>
(transl. Leah Di Segni)