Oh, Gregory, how can you ask us to remain steadfast amid these horrors?—Brethren and sisters—know you what has happened in Arethusa? The unbelievers have maltreated the old bishop Marcus, dragged him by the hair through the streets, cast him into the sewers, dragged him up again, bleeding and befouled, smeared him over with honey and set him in a tree, a prey to wasps and poisonous flies.
Gregory.
And has not God’s power been gloriously manifested in this very Marcus? What was Marcus before? A man of doubtful faith. When the troubles broke out in Arethusa, he even fled from the city. But behold—-no sooner had he heard in his hiding-place that the raging crew were avenging the bishop’s flight on innocent brethren, than he returned of his own free will. And how did he bear the torments which so appalled even his executioners, that in order to withdraw with some show of credit, they offered to release him if he would pay a very trifling fine? Was not his answer: No—and no, and again no? The Lord God was with him. He neither died nor yielded. His countenance showed neither terror nor impatience. In the tree wherein he hung, he thanked God for being lifted a few steps nearer heaven, while the others, as he said, crawled about on the flat earth.
Cyrillus.
A miracle must have happened to the resolute old man. If you had heard, as I did, the shrieks from the prison, that day in the summer when Hilarion and the others were tortured——! They were like no other shrieks—agonised, rasping, mixed with hissing sounds every time the white-hot iron buried itself in the raw flesh.
Apollinaris.
Oh, Cyrillus, have you forgotten how the shrieks passed over into song? Did not Hilarion sing even in death? Did not that heroic Cappadocian boy sing until he gave up the ghost under the hands of the torturers? Did not Agathon, that boy’s brother, sing until he swooned away, and then woke up in madness?
Verily I say unto you, so long as song rings out above our sorrows, Satan shall never conquer!
Gregory.
Be of good cheer. Love one another and suffer one for another, as Serapion in Doristora lately suffered for his brothers, for love of whom he let himself be scourged, and cast alive into the furnace!