Valentina and the Martyr Paul

Up to the sixth year the storm against us raged without a break. Before this there had been a very large number of confessors of godliness at the quarry in the Thebaid called Porphyry, after the stone found there. Of these, ninety-seven men, together with women and small children, were sent to the governor of Palestine. When they confessed the God of the universe and Christ, Firmilian, who had been sent there as governor in place of Urbanus, following the imperial order, had them crippled by burning the sinews of the ankles of their left feet, and had their right eyes, with the eyelids and pupils, first cut out and then destroyed to the very roots with hot irons. Then he sent them to the mines in the province, to endure hard toil and suffering. [a] But it was not only these who suffered such miseries that were to lose their eyes. So too were the natives of Palestine mentioned just above, who had been condemned to boxing combat, because they would neither accept food from the imperial storehouse nor undergo the training required. [b] Brought for this reason before the officials in charge, and before Maximin himself, they showed the noblest persistence in their confession by enduring hunger and blows, and they received the same punishment as those we have mentioned, and with them other confessors in the city of Caesarea.

Immediately after this, others who had gathered at Gaza to hear the Scriptures read were seized. Some suffered the same treatment of feet and eyes; others were afflicted with still greater torments and the most terrible tortures of the sides. One of these, a woman in body but a man in understanding, would not submit to the threat of being forced into fornication, and spoke out directly against the tyrant who had entrusted the government to such cruel judges. She was first scourged, then hoisted up on the stake, and her sides were torn. As those appointed for the task applied the tortures relentlessly and severely at the judge’s command, another woman, whose mind, like the first one’s, was set on virginity, could not bear these merciless, cruel and inhuman deeds. She was altogether insignificant in body and looked down on for her appearance, but strong in soul and gifted with an understanding greater than her body. With a boldness beyond that of the fighters famous among the Greeks, she cried out to the judge from the middle of the crowd, “How long will you go on torturing my sister so cruelly?” He was greatly enraged and ordered the woman to be seized at once.

So she was brought forward, and having called herself by the revered name of the Savior, she was first urged with words to sacrifice; and when she refused, she was dragged to the altar by force. But this sister kept up her former zeal, and with a fearless and resolute foot she kicked the altar and overturned it, with the fire that was on it. [c] At that the judge, raging like a wild beast, inflicted on her such tortures of the sides as he had never inflicted on anyone before, as if he wanted to glut himself on her raw flesh. When his madness was satisfied, he bound the two of them together, this one and the woman she called sister, and condemned them to death by fire. It is said that the first of them came from the district of Gaza; the other, named Valentina, was from Caesarea and was well known to many.

But how can I describe as it deserves the martyrdom that followed, with which the thrice-blessed Paul was honored? He was condemned to death at the same time as these women, under one sentence. At the moment of his martyrdom, as the executioner was about to cut off his head, he asked for a short respite. When it was granted, he first, in a clear and ringing voice, prayed to God for his own people, asking pardon for them and that freedom might soon be restored to them. Then he asked that the Jews might turn to God through Christ; and going on in order, he asked the same for the Samaritans, and begged that the Gentiles who were in error and did not know God might come to know him and take up the true religion. Nor did he leave out the mixed crowd standing around. [d] After all these, oh, great and unspeakable forbearance! he prayed to the God of the universe for the judge who had condemned him to death, for the highest rulers, and for the man who was about to behead him, in his hearing and in the hearing of all present, asking that their sin against him should not be counted against them. [e] Having prayed for these things in a loud voice, and having moved nearly everyone to pity and tears, as one who was dying unjustly, he made himself ready of his own accord, offered his bare neck to the stroke of the sword, and was adorned with a divine martyrdom. This took place on the twenty-fifth day of the month Panemus, July 25 by the Roman reckoning. [f]

Such was the end of these. But not long afterward, a hundred and thirty wonderful athletes of the confession of Christ from the land of Egypt endured in Egypt itself, by Maximin’s command, the same afflictions of eyes and feet as the others, and were sent to the mines in Palestine mentioned above. Some of them, however, were condemned to the mines in Cilicia.