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| Of the Son of the Priest.
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Chapter X.—Of the Son of the Priest.
A young man who was a priest’s son, and brought up in impiety, about
this time went over to the true religion. For a lady remarkable for her
devotion and admitted to the order of deaconesses631
was an intimate friend of his mother. When
he came to visit her with his mother, while yet a tiny lad, she used to
welcome him with affection and urge him to the true religion. On the
death of his mother the young man used to visit her and enjoyed the
advantage of her wonted teaching. Deeply impressed by her counsels, he
enquired of his teacher by what means he might both escape the
superstition of his father and have part and lot in the truth which she
preached. She replied that he must flee from his father, and honour
rather the Creator both of his father and himself; that he must seek
some other city wherein he might lie hid and escape the violence of the
impious emperor; and she promised to manage this for him. Then, said
the young man, “henceforward I shall come and commit my soul to
you.” Not many days afterwards Julian came to Daphne, to
celebrate a public feast. With him came the young man’s father,
both as a priest, and as accustomed to attend the emperor; and with
their father came the young man and his brother, being appointed to the
service of the temple and charged with the duty of ceremonially
sprinkling the imperial viands. It is the custom for the festival of
Daphne to last for seven days. On the first day the young man stood by
the emperor’s couch, and according to the prescribed usage
aspersed the meats, and thoroughly polluted them. Then at full speed he
ran to Antioch,632
| 632 Vide note on page 98. | and making his
way to that admirable lady, “I am come,” said he, “to
you; and I have kept my promise. Do you look to the salvation of each
and fulfil your pledge.” At once she arose and conducted the
young man to Meletius the man of God, who ordered him to remain for
awhile upstairs in the inn. His father after wandering about all over
Daphne in search of the boy, then returned to the city and explored the
streets and lanes, turning his eyes in all directions and longing to
light upon his lad. At length he arrived at the place where the divine
Meletius had his hostelry; and looking up he saw his son peeping
through the lattice. He ran up, drew him along, got him down, and
carried him off home. Then he first laid on him many stripes, then
applied hot spits to his feet and hands and back, then shut him up in
his bedroom, bolted the door on the outside, and returned to Daphne. So
I myself have heard the man himself narrate in his old age, and he
added further that he was inspired and filled with Divine Grace, and
broke in pieces all his father’s idols, and made mockery of their
helplessness. Afterwards when he bethought him of what he had done he
feared his father’s return and besought his Master Christ to nod
approval of his deeds,633
break the bolts,
and open the doors. “For it is for thy sake,” said he,
“that I have thus suffered and thus acted.” “Even as
I thus spoke,” he told me, “out fell the bolts and open
flew the doors, and back I ran to my instructress. She dressed me up in
women’s garments and took me with her in her covered carriage
back to the divine Meletius. He handed me over to the bishop of
Jerusalem, at that time Cyril, and we started by night for
Palestine.” After the death of Julian this young man led his
father also into the way of truth. This act he told me with the rest.
So in this fashion these men were guided to the knowledge of God and
were made partakers of Salvation.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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