Section 357
The text on this page is estimated to be only 28.67% accurate
826 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. were any where stimulating them from without* But they would not even touch the holy wrestlers standing naked and striking at them with their hands, as they were commanded, in order to irritate the heasts against them. Sometimes, indeed, they would also rush upon them, but, as if repulsed by some di vine power, they again retreated. This continuing, also, for a long time, created no little wonder to the spectators ; so that now again on account of the failure in the first instance, they were obliged to let loose the beast a second and a third time upon one and the same martyr. One could not help being astonished at the intrepid perseverance of these holy men, and the firm and invincible mind of those, also, whose bo dies were but young and tender. For you could have seen a youth of scarcely twenty years, standing unbound, with his arms extended, like a cross, but with an intrepid and fearless earnest ness, intensely engaged in prayer to God, neither removing nor declining from the spot where he stood, whilst bears and leopards breathed rage and death, and almost touched his very flesh, and yet I know not how, by a divine and inscrutable power, they had their mouths in a manner bridled, and again retreated in haste. And such was he of whom we now speak. Again, you might have seen others, for they were five in all, cast before a wild bull, who indeed seized others, that approach ed from without, with his horns, and tossed them in the air, leav ing them to be taken up half dead, but only rushing upon the saints with rage and menaces ; for the beast was not able even to approach them, but beating the earth with his feet, and pushing with his horns hither and thither, and from the irritation excited by the brands of glowing iron, he breathed madness and death, yet was drawn back again by a divine interposition. So that as * Valesius and others understand this expression figuratively, as in the passage, "What have we to do with those without?" meaning the heathen. But the literal meaning seems to be natural and obvious, and refers to those who, standing with out the arena, in the amphitheatre, were urging and stimulating the beasts. OUST author uses the same expression below, evidently with the same intention as here, to designate particular persons. The figurative sense seems to be too general in an account like this.