Eulalia, a Christian Maiden, in the Year 302

At this time there was a Christian maiden called Eulalia, not more than twelve or thirteen years old, who was filled with such a desire and ardor of the spirit to die for the name of Christ, that her parents had to take her out of the city of Merida, to a distant country house, and keep her closely confined there. But this place could not put out the fire of her spirit, or confine her body for long; for she escaped one night, and very early the next day she went before the tribunal, and with a loud voice said to the judge and the whole magistracy: "Are you not ashamed to cast your own souls and the souls of others at once into eternal perdition by denying the only true God, the Father of us all, and the Creator of all things? O you wretched men! Do you seek out the Christians so that you may put them to death? Behold, here I am, an adversary of your satanic sacrifices. I confess God alone with heart and mouth; but Isis, Apollo, and Venus are vain idols."

The judge before whose tribunal Eulalia spoke so boldly was enraged. He called the executioner and ordered him to take her away quickly, strip her, and inflict various punishments on her; so that she, he said, may feel the gods of our fathers through the punishment, and learn it will be hard for her to despise the command of our Prince (that is, of Maximian).

But before he let matters go that far, he spoke to her with these soft words: "How gladly I would spare you! If only you would give up, before your death, your perverse views of the Christian religion! Think for once what great joy awaits you, which you may expect in the honorable state of matrimony. Behold, all your friends weep for you, and your sorrow-stricken, well-born relatives sigh over you, because you are to die in the tender bloom of your young life. See, the servants stand ready to torture you to death with all sorts of torments; for you will either be beheaded with the sword, or torn by the wild beasts, or singed with torches, which will make you howl and wail, because you will not be able to endure the pain; or, last of all, be burned with fire. You can escape all these tortures with little trouble, if you will only take a few grains of salt and incense on the tips of your fingers and offer it in sacrifice. Daughter, consent to this, and by it you will escape all these severe punishments."

This faithful martyr did not think it worth the trouble to answer either the pleading or the threatening words of the judge, but, to say it briefly, pushed far away from her and overturned* the images, the altar, the censer, the sacrificial book, and so on.

Instantly two executioners came forward, who tore her tender limbs, and with cutting hooks or claws cut open her sides to the very ribs. [n250-1]

Eulalia, counting and recounting the gashes on her body, said: "Behold, Lord Jesus Christ! Your name is being written on my body; what great delight it gives me to read these letters, because they are signs of Your victory! Behold, my purple blood confesses Your holy name."

She said this with an undaunted and happy face, showing not the least sign of distress, though the blood flowed from her body like a fountain. After she had been pierced through to her ribs with pincers, they held burning lamps and torches to the wounds in her sides, and to her abdomen. Finally the hair of her head was set on fire by the flames, and taking it into her mouth, she was suffocated by it. This was the end of this heroine; young in years, but old in Christ, who loved the doctrine of her Savior more than her own life. A. Mell., book 1, folio 105, column 4, and folio 106, columns 1 and 2, compared with J. Gys., folio 23, column 3, from Prudent. Steph. Hymn 3.

This happened in Lusitania, at Emerita, now called Merida or Medina del Rio Sacco, in the farthest or lowest part of Spain, under the Emperor Maximian and the Proconsul Dacian, as may clearly be seen in ancient writers, and also in the authors named above.