Nikephoros: The Life of St. Andrew the Fool

While [St. Andrew the Fool] was sitting on the porch before the gate, up comes a young eunuch, who happened to be the palace chamberlain of a noble. His face was rosy and his skin was white as snow, he was comely in a feminine way, yellow-haired, possessing a certain softness, and smelled musky from afar. Epiphanios was his friend and they loved each other dearly, for they had been brought up together. So, the eunuch had in his hands palm fruits [dates?], maybe thirty in number. Beholding then the bared, naked body of the holy man, alarm swelled in him and he asked Epiphanios: “My dearest and beloved Epiphanios, who then is this, and why does he go about naked, like shipwrecked mariners, though winter is beginning and it is unbearably cold?” Then Epiphanios said to him: “Dear brother, I do not know what to say about his appearance, since the devil captured and subjugated him and he wanders like one defiled with possession: all those like that tear their clothes and run about without feeling.” He said this so as to not reveal the goodness of the saint. Upon hearing that, the eunuch fell silent and pitying the saint as one of the poor, he gave him all of his palm fruits. “Accept these for the time being, as I have nothing else to give.” But the blessed man discovered the work of his soul through the eyes of his spirit, sternly looked at him, and said: “Even fools do not want the fruits of your ass’ labor (kōlophōnias).” The eunuch, who did not understand what he said, replied: “Are you truly such a fool that when you see palm fruits you think they are from Colophon (kōlophōnias)?”