“St. John was cast into a caldron of boiling oil,” said one.
“St. Apocryphus was actually drowned,” said another.
“I have reason to believe,” said a third, “that the loathsomeness of ablution hath been greatly exaggerated by the heretics.”
“I know it has,” said another. “I have washed myself once, though ye might not think it, and can assert that it is by no means as disagreeable as one supposes.”
“That is just what I dread,” said Pachymius. “Little by little, one might positively come to like it! We should resist the beginnings of evil.”
All this time the crowd of his supporters had been pressing upon the anchorite, and had imperceptibly forced him nearer the edge of the vessel, purposing at a convenient season to throw him in. He was now near enough to catch a glimpse of the limpid element. Recoiling in horror, he collected all his energies, and with head depressed towards his chest, and hands thrust forth as if to ward off pollution—butting, kicking, biting the air—he rushed forwards, and with a preternatural force deserving to be enumerated among his miracles, fairly overthrew the enormous vase, the contents streaming on the crowd in front of the stage.
“Take me to my hermitage!” he screamed. “I renounce the bishopric. Take me to my hermitage!”
“Amen,” responded the demon, and, assuming his proper shape, he took Pachymius upon his back and flew away with him amid the cheers of the multitude.
Pachymius was speedily deposited at the mouth of his cavern, where he received the visits of the neighbouring anchorites, who came to congratulate him on the constancy with which he had sustained his fiery, or rather watery trial. He spent most of his remaining days in the society of the devil, on which account he was canonised at his death.
“O Phœbus,” said Nonnus, when they were alone, “impose upon me any penance thou wilt, so I may but regain thy favour and that of the Muses. But before all things let me destroy my paraphrase.”