cutioners expose to the
flies the martyrs whose bodies are covered with honey; they make them
walk with bare feet over broken glass or red-hot coals, put them in
ditches with reptiles; chastise them with whips, whose thongs are
weighted with leaden balls; nail them when alive in coffins, which they
throw into the sea; hang them by their hair, and then set fire to them;
moisten their wounds with quicklime, boiling pitch, or molten lead; make
them sit on red-hot iron stools; burn their sides with torches; break
their bones on wheels, and torture them in every conceivable way. And,
with all this, physical pain counts for nothing; indeed, it seems to be
desired. Moreover, a continual miracle protects them. John drinks
poison but is unharmed. Sebastian smiles although pierced with arrows;
sometimes they remain in the air at the right or left of the martyr, or,
launched by the archer, they return upon himself and put out his eyes.
Molten lead is swallowed as if it were ice-water. Lions prostrate
themselves, and lick their hands as gently as lambs. The gridiron of
Saint Lawrence is of an agreeable freshness to him. He cries, "Unhappy
man, you have roasted one side, turn the other and then eat, for it is
sufficiently cooked." Cecilia, placed in a boiling bath, is refreshed
by it. Christina exhorts those who would torture her. Her father had
her whipped by twelve men, who at last drop from fatigue; she is then
attached to a wheel, under which a fire is kindled, and the flame,
turning to one side, devours fifteen hundred persons. She is then thrown
into the sea, but the angels support her; Jesus comes to baptise her
in person, then gives her to the charge of Saint Michael, that he may
conduct her back to the earth; after that she is placed for five days in
a heated oven, where she suffers not, but sings constantly. Vincent,
who was exposed to still greater tortures, feels them not. His limbs are
broken, he is covered with red-hot irons, he is pricked with needles,
he is placed on a brazier of live coals, and then taken back to prison,
where his feet are nailed to a post. Yet he still lives, and his
pains are changed into a sweetness of flowers, a great light fills his
dungeon, and angels sing with him, giving him rest as if he were on a
bed of roses. The sweet sound of singing, and the fresh odour of flowers
spread without in the room, and when the guards saw the miracle they
were converted to the faith, and when Dacian heard of it