Page:Aelfric's Lives of Saints Vol 1.djvu/501

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XXIII.

JULY 27. THE SEVEN SLEEPERS.

Behold here beginneth the Passion of the Seven Blessed Sleepers, the names of which saints shine in heaven, and also gleam brightly on earth among Christian men. The first of them, Maximianus, is the leader of his companions; the second beside 4 [him is] Malchus the obedient ; and the third beside. Martini- anus ; then the fourth, Dionysius; the holy Johannes, fifth; then the name of the sixth is Seraphion; and lastly, of the seventh, Constantine.

The festival of the Seven Saints is, in the year, five days before Loaf-Mass [Aug. 1.]

In the olden time, long past, of the great persecution, when the heathen men desired altogether to quench the beams of Christianity, and to destroy every memorial over the earth, and when the blessed martyrs suffered manifold distresses for His name ; — when Decius the perverse held sway over all the Roman empire, and things went well in his hands as regards this world, so that he tortured the chosen of God, and afflicted them with miseries, and punished them without fear just as he would ;--then it 16 happened, at a certain season, that he went into a city which men name Constantinople, which was the chief city in Greece, and thence he journeyed to Carthage, and thence to Ephesus.

When he had gone to the three cities, then he bade summon to him very speedily all the citizens together, saying that he desired to hold a council with them. As soon as those who believed in God learnt that, then were they all exceedingly afraid, and all their congregations were immediately disturbed, and the holy priests and all the good men became on a sudden grievously troubled. Then he, Decius the emperor, when he marched into Ephesus with magnificence and pomp, lifted up his heart greatly above measure as if he were God. Then began he to erect idols in the churches, and bade that every man should forthwith offer