About the same time, the fathers of the monks, men of merit by their life and antiquity—Macarius and Isidore, and another Macarius, and Heraclides, and Pambo, disciples of Antony—were renowned throughout Egypt, and especially in the regions of the desert of Nitria, men who were believed to share fellowship of life and conduct not with the rest of mortals, but with the angels on high. I speak of things I saw present, and I report the deeds of those in whose sufferings I was deemed worthy to be a companion. These led the army of the Lord, armed not with mortal weapons but with the faith of religion, an army conquering by dying, an army that, by the shedding of its own blood, might follow Christ in victory to heaven.
And while, stationed in their tents and praying, they awaited their would-be slayers, there was brought to them a man long withered in all his limbs, and especially in his feet. But when he had been anointed by them with oil in the name of the Lord, his soles were straightway made firm. And as they said, 'In the name of Jesus Christ, whom Lucius persecutes, rise and stand upon your feet and return to your house,' immediately rising and leaping up, he blessed God, showing that God was truly among them. Now a little while before this, a certain blind man begged to be led to the cell of Macarius, which was in the desert, a journey of three days. When the blind man had arrived there with much labor on the part of his guides, he did not find Macarius at home.
Greatly grieved, he could by no means assuage his sorrow, lacking the consolation of healing. But then, growing warm with the fervor of faith, he said to those who had led him: 'I beseech you, bring me to that part of the wall where the elder is wont to sleep.' And when he had been brought near, he took a little dry mud, with which the wall seemed plastered, and placed it upon his palm. He asked also that they draw water from the well from which the elder used to drink. Dissolving the little clod with that moisture, and anointing his eyes with that same mud, and washing with the water that had been drawn, he suddenly recovered his sight, so that he returned to his own home needing no support.
But lest he should act like those lepers whom the Lord, in the Gospels, marks as ungrateful for being cured by Him, he returned with his whole household and, giving thanks to God, made known the matter as it had taken place. This same Macarius had the den of a lioness near his cell. And one day the beast brought her blind cubs to him and placed them before his feet. But he, when he had understood that the beast was making supplication on account of the blindness of her cubs, prayed to the Lord to restore their sight to them. This recovered, they followed their mother back to the den. And a little later, returning herself with her cubs, she brought to the elder, as a gift in return for the favor received, very many fleecy sheepskins, carried in the grip of her mouth; and laying them before his door, she departed.
But if we should wish to recount the deeds of each of these marvels, we should be shut out from the brevity we have set ourselves, especially since these things deserve to have a narrative of their own. But in all these things Lucius was not ashamed, nor did he pay any reverence to the marvels of their virtues; nay rather, he ordered those very fathers to be taken away from their flock—indeed secretly seized—and deported to a certain island of the Egyptian marshes, in which he had learned that there was absolutely no Christian, so that thereby they might live either without consolations or without their accustomed observances. The elders therefore, with only two attendants, were led by night to the island, in which there was a certain temple held in the highest veneration by the inhabitants of the place.
And when the little boat of the elders had first touched the shore of that soil, behold, suddenly the virgin daughter of the priest of that temple, seized by a spirit, with mighty shrieking and cries raised to heaven, began to be driven through the midst of the people, and, wheeling about in frequent gyrations, gnashing, to dart her raving mouth this way and that. And when the people had gathered to the spectacle of so great a monstrosity—especially because she was the daughter of the priest (who was held in chief honor among them)—following her as she was snatched through the air, they came as far as the boat of the elders. There indeed, cast down and prostrate at their feet, she began to cry out: 'Why have you come here, O servants of the Most High God, to drive us out of our ancient and time-worn dwellings?'
'In this place, driven out from everywhere, we lay hidden; how is it that we could in no wise lie hidden from you? We yield up our ancient seats; receive your peoples and lands.' As she said these things, the spirit of error, rebuked by them, was put to flight. And the girl lay healed, together with her parents, at the feet of the Apostles of our time. They, preaching to them the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with such beginnings, suddenly led them to so great a conversion that on that very day, with their own hands, they destroyed the most ancient temple, held in the highest veneration, and at once built a church. Nor did they need any span of time for deliberation, since not words but power had given them assurance of these realities.
But when this had been reported at Alexandria, Lucius, fearing lest perhaps even just hatreds among his own should rise against him—who was now openly declaring war not on men but on God—ordered them to be secretly recalled and sent back into the desert. While these things were being done in Egypt, not even in other places did the flame of persecution cease.