Ælfric

“ My dear child, there is not today the emperor living on earth who is named Decius; the emperor whom thou askest about, he lived in the world long ago, and very many years are now past since he departed from this life." Then said Malchus to the bishop in answer, " That is the one thing, dear lord, which oppresses me all day, and that is the one fear which so greatly afflicts me in my mind, and no man will believe my words; but I pray you now humbly that ye will follow after me a little while. I have very near at hand a few companions; they are here, yonder in the cave on the Celian Hill ”

“ Then answered Maximianus, and said to his brethren, "If it shall so happen that men find us here, and lead us for God's name to the emperor, let us straightway go thither very readily, and let us there stand readily before him, and let him command such punishment as he may command us. Let us not be at all affrighted, neither let us ever deny our former life, that we have purely kept up the praise of God amongst us until now, through the holy faith of the Son of the living God." And they, the brothers, cried to Malchus and said to him ”

“ Then about that time died Decius abroad, the evil emperor, and all his kindred, every whit; and many other emperors reigned after him, one after another, in the glory of their kingship, and in the joy of their power; and they, some heathen and some Christian, reigned many years until Theodosius, the great emperor, son of Arcadius, succeeded to the kingdom. ”

“ And Theodosius, the great emperor, when he heard such folly every day, he became exceeding sorry in his mind; and he, weeping, bemoaned it in his thoughts, that ever in his time the Christian faith should fall away so miserably.
Some of the chief heretics said that men would never arise from death ; some of them said that the body, which alone is corrupted and turned to dust and sown widely, would never come together again, but the souls alone on Doomsday, without any body, would receive the joy of their resurrection. ”

“ Nay, nay, dear man, thou canst not so deceive us with thy smooth words ; as for the gold-hoard which thou hast found and hast so long concealed, it cannot be hidden now it is thus discovered." He knew not what answer he should give them on account of the great awe which was in his mind. ”

“ As soon as those who believed in God learnt that, then were they all exceedingly afraid, and all their congregations were immediately disturbed, and the holy priests and all the good men became on a sudden grievously troubled. Then he, Decius the emperor, when he marched into Ephesus with magnificence and pomp, lifted up his heart greatly above measure as if he were God. Then began he to erect idols in the churches, and bade that every man should forthwith offer sacrifice to the devil with him, on pain of capital punishment ”

“ Tell us what manner of man thou art, or whence thou art come, since thou hast thus found old money, and thus hast brought hither old pennies which were struck in ancient days in the time of our ancestors; tell us now the truth without any lie, and we will be thy defenders, and thy advocates always ; neither will we betray thee, but let it all be quiet, so that no man need learn it save ourselves. ”

“ And about the eight and thirtieth year after he began to reign, there sprang up everywhere among God's people great heresy, and evil men went about everywhere they could, and brought Christian men into heresy, and said that the belief was naught which all faithful men believe without doubt, viz. that all men at Doomsday shall arise with the same bodies in which each one before lived here in life, 'and then each man shall be doomed according to his deserts, either to misery in hell-torment, or to mirth in the kingdom of heaven. ”

“ And while the heathen rejoiced in such diabolic delusion, those who believed in God wept and lamented, and continned in the greatest sadness, to think that they should ever have seen with their eyes such miseries as they saw there, and that the devil should ever have so great dominion over mankind ”

“ All the evil that they had begun before, they have afterward fully performed ; they have taken from their kinsmen countless treasures, and cast them all about the open city-ways, and are now concealed and hidden in secret so that no man can anywhere find them. If thy kingship so sayeth, it shall instantly happen that their kinsmen be summoned, and be sternly threatened, that they, by means of torture, may betray them, and bring them, lord, to thee." When the emperor heard these words he immediately comforted his mind ”

“ When with excessive wrath he commanded each man, then they all continued faithful, and oppressed with fear, and everyone sought refuge immediately where he could find any ; and he, Malchus the faithful, fled instantly from the city with awe and fear, having with him however some scanty food, and came to his companions and told them everything; how fearfully the emperor had commanded concerning them, that they should be sought for everywhere ; and they, the Saints, when they had heard that, all feared and cried to God, and with very great lamentation commended to Him all their lives. ”

“ After such words and manifold others, then stepped in to the emperor the chiefest who were in his household, and accused the Saints to him, and thus spake concerning them : " Lord of all men throughout this wide world, we pray thy kingship til at thou be not at all dreary or sorry for the young boys, enemies of all gods, because they have continued in evil under thee, lord, until this present day; according to that which we have heard, after that thou didst allow them that respite wherein they might bethink themselves, they have ever sought how they might misplease thee utterly. ”

“ Here may every man see, who has any skill in the art of numbers, and the superscription of these pennies here showeth it openly to all men, that it is even more than three hundred and two and seventy years since the like money was current on the earth, and all men traded with it; and that was soon after the first days when Decius the emperor began to reign; and now there is no piece of such money anywhere among the money which we in these days make use of, and buy our necessaries with. ”

“ Then they spake between themselves so that no man knew it save themselves, that they would write down the martyrology of these holy martyrs, and lay the writing therein with the Saints, just where men must go into the cave, that it might lie therein with them as a testimony, until the time when God Almighty should awake them, and should reveal them to mankind; that all men might afterward perceive by that writing, who the Saints were whom they should find therein, when it should be God's will. ”

“ But Almighty God the Merciful, who with full mildheartedness receiveth every man who seeketh Him with full humility, when He saw the emperor's great lamentation, at once repented Him of his grievous purpose, and would no longer keep him afflicted, neither would He likewise longer permit that His holy people should lie in heresy ”

“ But God the Almighty Creator, who is the Ruler of all creatures, who to His chosen is as mild as is a mother to her own child, Himself ordained for the Seven Saints, that they should sleep thus, for the great wonders which afterward He willed to do ”

“ But those who steadfastly believed, when they were led thither, and had their faith firm in God, and would not deny their Lord for any man's threats, these the heathen respected not a whit, but punished them by every affliction, and sundered all their limbs one from the other, even as the blowing of the wind sweepeth dust from the earth, and they cut them up and mocked (?) ”

“ Maximianus, who was the son of the city-reeve, Malchus, Martinianus, Dionysius, Johannes, Seraphion, Constantine: these are the Saints who, according to the command of Decius the emperor, were enclosed with wrought stones in this cave; and we two, Theodorus and Eufinus, wrote their martyrology and laid it herein, with these Saints, upon a stone." And when they had read that writing, they were all wondering, and with one mind praised and magnified God Almighty for the great wonders which He had manifested there, and granted to all men ”

“ He then came to the church, and looked about on every side whereever he could, and the gazing people pressed upon him all about, and he earnestly looked on every side wherever he could, and the people regarded him as evilly as if he were guilty of something, and all men dragged him from place to place and wonderfully insulted him ”

“ They all lay sleeping upon the earth, and thus in the confession of God's name they fell into that quietness; and the money that they had there in their scrips lay also with the Saints upon the earth. When the sun began in the morning to show to all men her bright beam, then the emperor bade search diligently wherever they could hear of the Saints. Then every man, according to the command, went everywhere ”

“ Truly it never seemeth to me that it can be true that this is the city of Ephesus, because it is all ordered in another manner and all built with other dwellings; neither does any man here speak in the manner of heathen men, but all after the customs of Christian men." Then he changed his thoughts again, and answered himself thus, " But again I know not, neither knew I ever yet, that any other city was near to us except Ephesus alone, here just beside the Celian Hill ”

“ But suddenly, in about three days, the emperor sent his heralds, and commanded that men should watch the Christian men very zealously, and that each man should seize them wherever he could on pain of death ; and if they could anywhere find out that any man had protected them, he should be guilty of death ”

“ For they received from their kinsmen abundant treasure, immense [quantities of] silver and gold, and spent them all publicly and privately for the sake of God, and distributed to poor men, and took counsel among themselves, and thus unanimously spoke; " Better we should free ourselves from the tumult of this population ; let us go into the great cave here beyond on the Celian Hill, and there let us pray earnestly to God; and there we may full easily dwell in safety until the emperor come again into this city ”

“ Then none of the men could any longer conceal himself, but every one in due time had to proclaim and openly testify by his deeds to which of the two lordships he would bow, whether to that of our eternal Lord, or of the accursed devil ”

“ Then they, the heralds, and many others, as hoping for the pay, went and sought the Christians wherever they could find them, and tried to please the emperor, to receive some pay from him; and these heathen men, when they anywhere found Christian men, drove them out, and carried them before 56 them like little grasshoppers, and brought them to the people where all men were worshipping idols with the emperor, and compelled the Christians to submit to the devil like themselves ”