We know, at any rate, those of them who shone forth in Palestine, and we know also those at Tyre in Phoenicia. Who that saw them was not struck with amazement at the innumerable scourgings, and the steadfastness shown amid them by these truly marvellous athletes of godliness, and the conflict with the blood-thirsty wild beasts that immediately followed the scourgings, and amid this the assaults of leopards and divers bears, of wild boars and of bulls goaded with fire and iron, and the marvellous endurance of these noble ones against each of the beasts?
At the doing of these things we ourselves also were present, when we beheld the present divine power of our Saviour, even Jesus Christ Himself, to whom witness was being borne, clearly manifesting itself to the martyrs: the man-eating beasts for a considerable time not daring to touch or to come near the bodies of those beloved of God, but rushing upon the others, whoever from outside were goading them on with provocations, while only the holy athletes, standing naked and waving with their hands and drawing the beasts upon themselves—for this they were commanded to do—they did not touch at all; but sometimes, when even these were rushing upon them, they were repelled as if by some more divine power, and again retreated backward.
And this, continuing for a long time, afforded no small wonder to the beholders, so that, because of the inactivity of the first beast, a second and a third was let loose against one and the same martyr.
One might be amazed at the undaunted constancy of those holy ones amid these things, and the firm and unshaken steadfastness lodged in young bodies. You might see, at any rate, a youth not yet a full twenty years of age standing without bonds, and spreading out his hands in the figure of a cross, while with undaunted and untrembling mind he was most leisurely stretched out in prayers to the Deity, not stirring at all nor leaning anywhere from the place where he stood, while bears and leopards, breathing rage and death, almost laid hold of his very flesh, yet—I know not how—by a divine and ineffable power were well-nigh muzzled in mouth, and ran back again behind. Such, then, was this one.
Again, you might have seen others—five in all there were—exposed to an infuriated bull, which, while it tossed into the air with its horns the others who approached from outside and tore them, leaving them to be taken up half-dead, rushing only upon the holy martyrs with rage and menace, was not even able to come near them; but striking with its feet, and using its horns this way and that, and breathing rage and threatening because of the provocations of the goads, it was drawn back again by the holy Providence, so that, since not even this beast did them any harm at all, certain other wild beasts were let loose against them.
At last, then, after the terrible and varied assaults of these beasts, all of them were slaughtered with the sword, and, instead of earth and tombs, were delivered up to the waves of the sea.