[any] man. Now as concerning the possessions of which she stripped herself, and the things (i.e., money) which she distributed, being hot as fire with divine zeal, and blazing like a flame with the love of Christ, I alone am not able to recount, for it belongeth also unto those who dwell in the country of the Persians [to declare it]; for there was no man who was deprived of her alms and gifts [whether he came from the] east, or the west, or the north, or the south. She lived in exile for thirty-seven years, and her possessions sufficed for her to give alms to churches, and to religious houses, and to strangers, and to those who were in prison. And meanwhile her relatives and her kinsfolk were sending [money] unto her continually, and her own son, and those who had charge of her property also sent some of their own money unto her; and she never lacked anything, and during the whole of the time in which she was in exile she never consented to the acquisition of a span of land. And she was never drawn to long for her son, and the love for her only child neither parted her nor divided her from the love of Christ, but through her prayers her son attained unto perfect discipline and unto the ways and habits of excellence; and he became the son-in-law of honourable and noble people, and there also came upon him much power and divers positions of great honour; now he had two children, one boy and one girl.
Now after a long period of time had elapsed, when she heard that the daughter of her son and her husband wished to be sanctified, and fearing lest they should fall into the hands of the heretics who would sow in them evil doctrines, and lest they should grow up in a life of dissolute luxury, that old woman, who was then sixty years old, embarked once again in a ship, and sailed from Caesarea, and after twenty days arrived in Rome. And whilst she was there she converted and made to become a Christian a man called Apronianus, who was of exceedingly high rank and was also a pagan; and she moreover persuaded him by means of most perfect admonition and exhortation to become sanctified, and also his wife, who was her own sister and whose name was Avita, to receive the garb of the followers of the ascetic life, and to become prosperous in all patience in the labours of the life of abstinence and self-denial. And she also strengthened by means of her excellent counsels the daughter of her son, whose name was Melania, and her husband, whose name was Pinianus, and she also converted her daughter-in-law, whose name was Albînâ; and she persuaded all these to sell everything which they possessed and to give [the money] to the poor; and she brought them out from Rome, and led them into the
