As I persecute him more with greater persecution,
so I make him always the more glorious.
But if the earth may not destroy the man,
let him be sunk in the waves of the sea,
that I may not so oft be ashamed at the victory of him alone
in the sight of men, who behold it all;
let him at least be hidden in the deep sea.
Let him be sewn in a sack, with heavy stones,
and cast him away into the spacious sea,
as meat for the fishes, though the fowls would not have him.'
The fierce persecutors then quickly did so.
They cast the saint's body into the spacious sea,
with heavy stones, as the judge commanded them,
that at least he should not escape from the sea,
though he formerly escaped from the earth;
and they rowed homeward in high glee.
But the holy man's body, by the Saviours might,
arrived at the strand before they stepped ashore,
and lay on the shingle, till a believing widow
received a clear indication concerning it,
where the holy body lay on the strand,
cast amid the shingle by the sea-waves,
as if he should be buried by God's command.
His body was then borne to a holy church
with much veneration, and therein buried;
and his holy bones were widely distributed,
and with much love men revere them everywhere,
as the books tell us, for his true faith,
to the praise of the Saviour, who liveth aye in eternity. Amen.
