Forty Youths, who Confessed Christ their Savior, Thrown into a Cold Pool, in the Year 304

When the East as well as the West was exceedingly disturbed on account of the violence of the persecution, there appeared in the East, namely at Antioch, forty pious youths, as valiant champions of Jesus Christ, for they openly and boldly confessed the Son of God, Jesus Christ, as their Savior. Thereupon the Governor of that place, after they had been apprehended, strenuously exerted himself to move them from the faith; but when all his efforts proved unsuccessful, he had them stripped naked, in the coldest part of the winter, and cast into a very cold pool. But since they were still alive the next day, he had them burned to powder.

One of them, who because of his extreme youth had through compassion been restored to his mother, was placed by her, with her own hands, upon the wagon in which the others lay, and exhorted to finish this blessed course with his fellow brothers. This happened in the third year of the persecution, in the year 304. Joh. Gys., folio 23, column 3, ex Bas. de 40 Martyr. [n263-1]