While Licinius was Emperor and Agricolaus Governor, forty soldiers at Sebaste, a city of Armenia, gave a singular instance of faith in Jesus Christ, and bravery under suffering. After being often remanded to an horrid prison-house, bound in fetters, and their mouths bruised with stones, they were ordered out in the depth of winter, stripped naked, and put upon a frozen pool, to die of cold during the night. The prayer of them all was the same: O Lord, forty of us have begun to run in the race, grant that all forty may receive the crown, let not one be wanting at the last. Behold, is it not an honourable number in thy sight, who didst bless the fast of forty days, and at the end thy Divine Law came forth to the earth? When also Elias sought thee, thou, O God, didst reveal thyself unto him when he had fasted for forty days. Even so was their petition.
When the keepers were all asleep and the watchman only was awake, he heard them praying and saw a light shining round about them, and Angels coming down from heaven, as the messengers of the King, bearing nine-and-thirty crowns, and distributing them to the soldiers. Then he said within himself: Are not forty here? Where is the crown of the fortieth? And as he looked he saw one of them whose courage could not bear the cold, come and leap into a warm bath that stood by; and the Saints were grievously afflicted. Nevertheless God suffered not that their prayer should return unto them void; for the watchman wondered, and called the keepers, and stripped himself of his clothes; and, when with a loud voice he had confessed himself a Christian, he joined the Martyrs. When the servants of the Governor knew that the watchman also was a Christian, they brake the legs of them all with staves.
Under this torment died they all, saving Melithon, who was the youngest. Now, his mother stood by, and when she saw that his legs were broken, but that he was yet alive, she cried, and said: My son, have patience but a little longer. Behold how Christ standeth at the door to help thee. When she saw the bodies of all the others put upon carts and taken away to be burned, and that her son was left behind, because the multitude wickedly hoped that being but a youth, if he lived, he might yet be drawn to commit idolatry, the holy mother took him on her own shoulders and bravely followed behind the carts laden with the bodies of the Martyrs. In her arms Melithon gave up his soul unto God, and the mother who loved him so well laid his body with her own hands upon the pile, with those of the other Martyrs, that, as they had all been one in faith and strength, in death they might not be divided, and might enter heaven together. After the burning, what remained of them was thrown into a running stream, but the ashes were all washed together into one place, and being found and rescued, they were laid in an honourable sepulchre.
When the keepers were all asleep and the watchman only was awake, he heard them praying and saw a light shining round about them, and Angels coming down from heaven, as the messengers of the King, bearing nine-and-thirty crowns, and distributing them to the soldiers. Then he said within himself: Are not forty here? Where is the crown of the fortieth? And as he looked he saw one of them whose courage could not bear the cold, come and leap into a warm bath that stood by; and the Saints were grievously afflicted. Nevertheless God suffered not that their prayer should return unto them void; for the watchman wondered, and called the keepers, and stripped himself of his clothes; and, when with a loud voice he had confessed himself a Christian, he joined the Martyrs. When the servants of the Governor knew that the watchman also was a Christian, they brake the legs of them all with staves.
Under this torment died they all, saving Melithon, who was the youngest. Now, his mother stood by, and when she saw that his legs were broken, but that he was yet alive, she cried, and said: My son, have patience but a little longer. Behold how Christ standeth at the door to help thee. When she saw the bodies of all the others put upon carts and taken away to be burned, and that her son was left behind, because the multitude wickedly hoped that being but a youth, if he lived, he might yet be drawn to commit idolatry, the holy mother took him on her own shoulders and bravely followed behind the carts laden with the bodies of the Martyrs. In her arms Melithon gave up his soul unto God, and the mother who loved him so well laid his body with her own hands upon the pile, with those of the other Martyrs, that, as they had all been one in faith and strength, in death they might not be divided, and might enter heaven together. After the burning, what remained of them was thrown into a running stream, but the ashes were all washed together into one place, and being found and rescued, they were laid in an honourable sepulchre.
