Sophronius the Sophist <‘Professor of Rhetoric’> and I went to visit Abba Alexander in the Laura of Calamon, near the holy Jordan. We found with him two monks of the monastery of Soubiba of the Syrians, and they told us the following story. “Ten days ago an old man, a foreigner, arrived at Soubiba of the Bessians and gave an offering. He had a request for the abbot of the monastery: “Do me a favour, he said, send word to the monastery of the Syrians, near here, to come and take the offering for themselves, and also to pass the word to the monastery of Chorembe, to come here”. The abbot dispatched a brother to the hegumen of Soubiba of the Syrians. The brother went and said to him: “Come to the monastery of the Bessians, and send word to the monastery of Chorembe to go there too”. The old man replied: “Forbear, brother: there is nobody I can send. So please finish your (deed of) charity: you go and tell them”. The brother objected that he had never been there and did not know the way. So the old man said to his little dog: “Go with this brother to the coenobium of Chorembe that he can speak his message” and the dog accompanied him until he stood at the very gate of the monastery.” The monks who related this even showed us that very same dog, for they had it with them.
(transl. Leah Di Segni)