How the Iberians Became Christian

It is now right to tell how the Iberians came over to the faith at about the same time. A certain woman who lived a devout and chaste life was, by the providential ordering of God, taken captive by the Iberians. These Iberians live near the Black Sea, and are a colony of the Iberians of Spain. In her captivity, then, the woman gave herself to the disciplined practice of virtue among the barbarians. She not only kept the strictest self-control, but spent much time in fasting and prayer. The barbarians, seeing this, were astonished at how strange her conduct was. [a]

It happened then that the king’s son, still a little baby, fell ill. The queen, following the custom of the country, sent the child to other women to be cured, hoping that their experience would supply a remedy. The infant was carried around by his nurse without getting relief from any of the women, and at last he was brought to this captive. She had no knowledge of medicine, and used no physical remedy. She simply took the child and laid him on her bed, which was made of horsecloth, and in the presence of other women she said, “Christ, who healed many, will heal this child also.” Then, adding prayer to this expression of faith, she called on God, and the boy was immediately restored, and stayed well from that time on.

The report of this miracle spread far and wide among the barbarian women, and soon reached the queen, so that the captive became very famous. Not long afterward the queen herself fell sick and sent for the captive woman. Being a modest and retiring person, she excused herself from going, so the queen was carried to her. The captive did for her what she had done for her son before, and at once the disease left her. The queen thanked the stranger, but she answered, “This work is not mine, but Christ’s, who is the Son of God who made the world.” So she urged her to call on him and to acknowledge the true God.

Amazed at his wife’s sudden recovery, the king of the Iberians wanted to repay with gifts the woman who, as he understood, had brought about these cures. But she said that she had no need of riches, since she possessed the comforts of religion as her riches; the greatest gift he could give her, she said, would be for him to acknowledge the God whom she worshiped and proclaimed. With this she sent back the gifts. The king stored this answer away in his mind. The next day he went out hunting, and this is what happened. A mist and thick darkness covered the mountaintops and forests where he was hunting, so that their sport was spoiled and they could find no way out. In this difficulty the prince earnestly called on the gods he worshiped. When that did no good, he at last decided to beg the help of the captive’s God; and he had hardly begun to pray when the darkness caused by the mist cleared away completely. Wondering at what had happened, he returned to his palace rejoicing, and told his wife about it. He also sent at once for the captive stranger and begged her to tell him who that God was whom she worshiped.

When the woman arrived, she made the king of the Iberians a preacher of Christ. For having believed in Christ through this devoted woman, he called together all the Iberians under his rule. He told them what had happened, not only in the cure of his wife and child but also in the hunt, and urged them to worship the God of the captive. So both the king and the queen were made preachers of Christ, the one speaking to their men, the other to their women.

Moreover, the king learned from his prisoner the plan on which churches were built among the Romans. He ordered a church to be built and at once supplied everything needed to put it up, and so the building was begun. But when they came to set up the pillars, divine Providence stepped in to confirm the people in the faith. One of the columns would not move, and no means could be found to shift it. Their ropes broke and their machinery fell to pieces, until at last the workmen gave up all further effort and went away. Then the reality of the captive’s faith was proved in this way. She went to the place at night without anyone knowing, and spent the whole night in prayer. By the power of God the pillar was raised and stood upright in the air above its base, yet without touching it. At daybreak the king, who was a man of understanding, came himself to inspect the work. Seeing the pillar hanging in this position without any support, both he and his attendants were amazed. Shortly after, before their very eyes, the pillar came down onto its own pedestal and stayed fixed there. At this the people shouted, bearing witness to the truth of the king’s faith and singing the praise of the captive’s God. From then on they believed, and eagerly raised the rest of the columns, and the whole building was soon finished.

Afterward an embassy was sent to the emperor Constantine, asking that from then on they might be allies of the Romans, and receive from them a bishop and consecrated clergy, since they sincerely believed in Christ. Rufinus says that he learned these facts from Bacurius. Bacurius had once been one of the minor kings of the Iberians, but later went over to the Romans and was made captain of the military force in Palestine. In the end he was entrusted with the supreme command in the war against the usurper Maximus, and assisted the emperor Theodosius. In this way, then, in the days of Constantine, the Iberians too were converted to Christianity.