About the same time the people of the Iberians also, who dwell beneath the Pontic sky, received the covenants of the word of God and the faith of the kingdom to come. But the cause of so great a good was a certain captive woman, who, being found among them and leading a life sufficiently faithful, sober, and chaste, and offering to God watchful prayers all day and all night, the very novelty of the thing began to be an object of wonder to the barbarians; and they inquired more curiously what this might mean. She, as the matter was, simply confessed that by this rite she worshipped Christ as God. The barbarians wondered at nothing in this beyond the novelty of the name.
But, as commonly happens, her very perseverance stirred in the women a certain curiosity, whether any benefit might be gained from such great devotion. It is said to be the custom among them that, if a little child falls sick, it is carried about by its mother through the several houses, so that if anyone should know some tried remedy, he might bring it to the suffering child. And when a certain woman had carried her little one about among all, according to custom, and had obtained no remedy by going through all the houses, she came also to the captive, that she might show what she knew, if anything. The captive testified that she indeed knew nothing of human remedy, yet affirmed that her God, Christ whom she worshipped, could grant to the child the healing despaired of by men.
And when she had laid the little one upon her own hair-cloth, and had herself poured out a prayer over it to the Lord, she restored the infant whole to its mother. The report was carried to many, and the fame of the great deed made its way even to the ears of the queen. She, afflicted by a certain very grievous bodily pain, was in the deepest despair. She asked that the captive be brought to her. The captive refused to go, lest she should seem to presume something more than her sex allowed. The queen ordered herself to be carried to the captive's little cell. And laying her likewise upon her hair-cloth, having invoked the name of Christ, immediately after the prayer she made her rise up sound and lively. And she taught that Christ was God, the Son of the Most High God, who had bestowed this healing;
and she admonished her to call upon Him whom she now knew to be the author of her safety and her life. For He it is who both distributes kingdoms to kings and life to mortals. But she, having returned home with joy, disclosed to her husband, who asked the cause of so sudden a recovery; and when he, rejoicing for the safety of his wife, ordered gifts to be brought to the woman, she said: 「Of these things, O king, the captive deems nothing worthy: she despises gold, she rejects silver, she feeds on fasting as if on food. This alone shall we give her for a gift, if we worship as God the Christ who healed me when she called upon Him.」
To this the king was at that time rather slow, and meanwhile he put it off, though often admonished by his wife, until it happened one day, while he was hunting in the woods with his companions, that the day was darkened by the thickest gloom, and through the horror of foul night, the light withdrawn, his way was denied to his groping steps. The companions strayed apart, one in one direction, another in another; he alone, surrounded by the densest darkness, knew not what to do or where to turn, when suddenly such a thought rose up in his mind, anxious through despair of safety: If that Christ whom the captive had foretold to his wife is truly God, let Him now deliver him from this darkness, that thenceforth, forsaking all else, he might worship Him.
Immediately, as soon as he had vowed this not yet in word but in mind alone, the day was restored to the world and brought the king safely to the city. And forthwith he disclosed to the queen the matter as it had been done. He demanded that the captive be summoned at once, and that she hand over to him the rite of worship; and he affirmed that he would henceforth venerate no other God than Christ. The captive came; she taught Christ to be God; she disclosed the rite of supplication and the manner of veneration, so far as it was lawful to reveal these things to a woman. Yet she admonished him to build a church, and described its form. So the king, having called together the people of the whole nation, set forth the matter from the beginning, what had been done concerning himself and the queen, and taught the faith; and not yet initiated in the sacred mysteries, he became the apostle of his own nation.
The men believed through the king, the women through the queen; and as all wished the same, a church was eagerly erected; and the circuit of walls being now swiftly raised, the time had come when the columns ought to be set in place. And when the first and second had been erected, and they had come to the third, all the engines and the strength of oxen and men being spent, when its middle had already been raised aslant and the remaining part could be raised by no devices, though their strength was summoned a second, a third, and many times more, it could not even be moved from its place, everything being worn out. There was the wonder of the whole people; the king's spirit grew dull; what ought to be done lay hidden from all alike.
But when, at the coming of night, all had withdrawn, and all mortals and the very work had ceased, the captive alone remained within, passing the night in prayer. When behold! at morning the king, anxious, entered with all his men and saw the column, which so many engines and so great a people had not been able to move, set upright and poised in balance upon its base, yet not placed upon it, but hanging in the air the space of one foot. Then indeed all the peoples, beholding and magnifying God, declared by the testimony of the present miracle that the king's faith and the captive's religion were true.
And behold, while all were still wondering and astonished, before their eyes the column was gradually let down upon its base, none touching it, and settled with perfect balance. After this the remaining number of columns was suspended with such ease that all that were left were set in place that very day. But after the church had been magnificently built, and the peoples thirsted with greater ardor for the faith of God, by the captive's counsel an embassy of the whole nation was sent to the Emperor Constantine: the matter accomplished was set forth; he was entreated to send priests who might complete the gift of God begun toward them. When he had dispatched these with all joy and honor, he rejoiced far more on this account than if he had joined to the Roman empire nations unknown and kingdoms unfamiliar.
These things, as they were thus done, the most faithful man Bacurius, king of that very nation and among us Count of the Domestics (whose chief care was for both religion and truth), set forth to us, when he was dwelling with us in Jerusalem, as Duke of the Palestinian frontier at that time, in quite friendly concord. But let us return to what we have begun.