God Stays The Wild Beasts (Persec. cont.)

 "Without referring to other individual martyrs in Phoenicia it will be sufficient to listen to the relation Eusebius gives of the massacre of Christians exposed to wild beasts in Tyre.  The majority of the Christians were Egyptians.

We assisted personally as such happenings . . . the devourers (wild beasts) of men did not dare for a long time either to touch or even to approach the bodies of the friends of God although they sprang accurately enough on the outsiders (pagans) who were urging them on with pointed sticks.  It was only the holy athletes who were untouched although they stood still and naked and beckoned to the beasts with their hands, as they had been told to do.  And if one of the animals sprang toward them, it seemed to be pushed back by divine power and at once went away from them.  

This went on for a long time and produced no little wonder among the spectators, for when the first beast had retired in this way, a second and third did the same.  All were dumbstruck by the fearless constancy of these saints and the unbreakable resolution of those young bodies.  You would see a young man of not yet twenty years of age who stood without movement although unbound with his hands outstretched in the form of the cross.  He prayed for long with untroubled and tranquil mind to the Divinity, neither moving nor going away from his place while bears and leopards, breathing rage and threats of horrible death, were almost touching him.  

But in some way, I know not how, by a divine and hidden force their mouths were closed and they finally ran away from him.  Such was one case.  Others you would have seen, there were five in all, exposed to an infuriated bull who tossed in the air the other outsiders (the pagans) who were urging him to the martyrs, and wounded them so seriously that they were picked up half dead.  When the bull rushed against the holy ones (the Christians) with all fury and menace he suddenly stopped and could approach no nearer but pawed the ground and tossed his horns here and there breathing anger and fear towards those who were goading him with hot irons.  

He had been stayed by Divine Providence and could inflict no harm on the martyrs.  Other beasts were set against them without success.  Finally after all these terrible and varied trials they were all slaughtered with the sword and instead of being buried in the earth or sepulchers they were all flung on the waves of the sea."   (Hist. Eccl, viii, 7, 2-6)