Page:Aelfric's Lives of Saints Vol 1.djvu/511

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and the earth; to Him alone we sacrifice, and to His Holy Child Jesus Christ, who for our need came in flesh in the Holy Ghost, who from the Father and the Son inexplicably proceedeth, and sanctifieth all creatures; to this Indivisible Trinity we pray with humility; to this God we frequently bring offerings, and send our supplications to him with purity of body and soul, and with confession of mind and mouth; we offer Him these fittingly, and we will never offer to thy accursed idols, lest we bring ourselves into defilement, and afterward into the misery of everlasting hell; to God alone we commit our needs, and to Him we commend our souls ; Him will we never deny, but will ever worship Him." When Decius, the emperor, heard these words, 176 then he did not oppose each one separately, but he bade men cut off from each their sword- scabbards, and bade men bind them firmly with bonds, and said to them all; " Since ye will not offer to the great gods, ye shall never henceforth be to me so worthy nor so dear as ye were before; but ye shall be separated from me, and from every mirth, until I urge you again, and then I will proceed against you more severely, when I want to have an accusation against you. It seemeth to me indeed to be unadvisable, yet I leave you unbeheaded — that ye so miserably undo and destroy yourselves and your flourishing youth in tortures and in woes and in divers miseries. But I yet grant you now some respite, that ye may bethink yourselves and bring yourselves to a better mind, that ye may save for yourselves your fair life."

When the emperor had thus spoken to them, then, because they were dear to him, he bade men unbind them all again and send them away unbound, that they might all travel away freely whithersoever they would; and the emperor went to men of other cities, and wrought the same that he had before practised, and vexed Christian men to the utmost of his power.

Then Maximianus, the Saint of God, and his six companions, God's chosen ones, after they had received the respite and had some leisure, they then fully completed the holy work which they had begun ere they stood before the emperor. For they received from their kinsmen abundant treasure, immense [quantities of]