Theodore the Confessor; Fire Destroys the Temple at Daphne

What I have just related made the emperor as angry as if he had been insulted himself, and he decided to punish the Christians. Sallustius, a praetorian prefect, though a pagan himself, tried to talk him out of it. But the emperor could not be calmed, and Sallustius was forced to carry out his order and to arrest and imprison many Christians. One of the first he arrested was a young man named Theodore, who was at once stretched on the rack. His flesh was torn with the iron claws, but he made no plea to Sallustius and did not beg for his torments to be eased. On the contrary, he seemed to feel the pain no more than if he were only watching someone else suffer, and he took the wounds bravely. He sang the same psalm he had joined in singing the day before, to show that he was not sorry for the act for which he had been condemned. The prefect was struck with admiration at the young man’s courage. He went to the emperor and told him that unless he quickly gave up what he had begun, he and those on his side would be made a laughingstock, while the Christians would win still more glory. This argument had its effect, and the Christians who had been arrested were set free. It is said that Theodore was later asked whether he had felt any pain on the rack. He answered that he had not been entirely free from suffering, but that his pain had been eased by the care of a young man who stood beside him. This young man wiped away his sweat with the finest linen cloth and gave him the coolest water, which soothed the burning and refreshed him in his ordeal. I am convinced that no man, however great his strength of soul, can show such complete indifference to the body without the special help of the power of God. [a]

The body of the martyr Babylas had been moved to Daphne for the reasons I have given, and was afterward carried elsewhere. Soon after it had been taken away, fire suddenly fell on the temple of Apollo of Daphne. The roof and the very statue of the god were burned. Only the bare walls escaped the blaze, together with the columns that had held up the porch and the back part of the building. The Christians believed that the prayers of the martyr had brought fire down from heaven on the demon. But the pagans charged that the Christians had set the place on fire. This suspicion spread, and the priest of Apollo was brought before the court to give up the names of those who had dared to commit the arson. But though he was bound and put to the cruelest tortures, he named no one. [d] So the Christians were all the more convinced that it was not the deed of any man but the wrath of God that had poured fire down from heaven on the temple. Such were the events of that time. The emperor, as I suppose, heard that the disaster at Daphne had been caused by the martyr Babylas. He was also told that the honored remains of martyrs were kept in several houses of prayer near the temple of Apollo at Didyma, which lies close to the city of Miletus. So he wrote to the governor of Caria, ordering him to burn down every such building that had a roof and an altar, and to tear down to their very foundations the houses of prayer that did not yet have these. [e]