About the same time the Church, as though smelted by the fire of persecution, shone forth purer than the metal of gold. For the faith of each one was tested not in words, but in exiles and prisons; because to be catholic was not for honor, but for punishment—especially at Alexandria, where the faithful did not even have free leave to bury the bodies of the dead. While Lucius carried on these things with all arrogance and savagery, Mauvia, queen of the nation of the Saracens, with a violent war began to shake the towns and cities of the Palestinian and Arabian frontier, and at the same time to lay waste the neighboring provinces.
And when by frequent battles she had worn down the Roman army, and, very many being slain, had turned the rest to flight, being entreated for peace, she promised that she would embrace it on no other terms than that a certain monk, Moses by name, should be ordained bishop for her nation. He, leading a solitary life in the desert near her territory, had become magnificently renowned by the merits and virtues and signs which God wrought through him. His petition, made known to the Roman sovereign, is ordered to be fulfilled without any delay by our commanders, who had there fought unsuccessfully. Moses, seized to receive the priesthood, is led to Alexandria according to custom. Lucius is present, to whom the office of ordaining was being committed. When he saw him, Moses, in the presence of the commanders who were pressing him and of the peoples, said:
'For my part, I judge that I am not worthy of so great a priesthood; nevertheless, if some divine dispensation is thought to be fulfilled in me, unworthy though I am, I call to witness our God, the Lord of heaven and earth, that Lucius shall not lay upon me his hands defiled and bloodied with the blood of the saints.' And when Lucius saw himself branded with so grave a mark in the eyes of very many: 'Why,' said he, 'Moses, dost thou so easily condemn one whose faith thou knowest not? Or if someone has reported to thee otherwise about me, hear my faith, and believe thyself rather than others.' Then he: 'Cease, O Lucius,' he said, 'to assail me also with thy deceitful images.'
'Well known to me is thy faith, which testify the servants of God condemned to the mines, bishops thrust into exile, presbyters, deacons banished beyond the dwellings of the Christian name, some delivered to wild beasts, others even to the flames. Can a faith that is grasped by the ears be truer than one that is plainly seen by the eyes? With me it is certain that those who rightly believe in Christ do not do these things.' And so, disfigured with greater disgrace—since the necessity of consulting the commonwealth pressed upon him—he was compelled to consent that Moses should receive the priesthood from those bishops whom he had thrust into exile. This received, he both kept the peace of that most fierce nation and preserved unstained the fellowship of the catholic faith.