The Conversion of the Iberians

So it was through Frumentius that the Indians came to the knowledge of God. At about the same time Iberia was guided into the way of truth by a woman who had been taken captive. She was constant in prayer. She allowed herself no softer bed than a sack spread on the ground, and she counted fasting her greatest luxury. This strict way of life was rewarded with gifts like those of the apostles. [a]

The barbarians there knew nothing of medicine. When disease struck them, their custom was to go to one another’s houses and ask people who had suffered the same way and got well how they had been cured. Following this custom, a mother who had a sick child came to this admirable woman to ask whether she knew any cure for the illness. The woman took the child, laid it on her own bed, and prayed to the Creator of the world to be gracious to it and to cure the disease. He heard her prayer and made the child well.

Because of this the remarkable woman became very well known. The queen, who was suffering from a severe illness, heard about her and sent for her. But the captive thought very little of herself and would not accept the queen’s invitation. So the queen, driven by her great need and caring nothing for her royal dignity, ran to the captive herself. The captive had the queen lie down on her poor bed, and once again she applied to the disease the powerful remedy of prayer. The queen was healed. As a reward for her cure she offered gold, silver, tunics and cloaks, all the gifts she thought worth having and that royal generosity ought to give. The holy woman told her that she wanted none of these things; the greatest reward she could have would be for the queen to come to know the true religion. Then, as far as she was able, she explained the divine teachings and urged the queen to build a church in honor of Christ, who had made her well.

The queen went back to the palace, and her husband marveled at how suddenly she had been cured. She told him of the power of the God whom the captive worshiped, and begged him to acknowledge the one and only God, to build a church for him, and to lead the whole nation to worship him. The king was delighted with the miracle that had been done for the queen, but he would not agree to build a church. A short time later he went out hunting, and the Lord, in his love, took him captive as he had taken Paul. A sudden darkness closed around him and kept him from moving from the spot. Those hunting with him still had the ordinary light of the sun; he alone was bound in the chains of blindness. In his helplessness he found the way out. Remembering his earlier unbelief, he called on the God of the captive woman for help, and at once the darkness was gone.

Then he went to the wonderful captive and asked her to show him how a church ought to be built. The one who long ago filled Bezalel with the skill of a builder graciously enabled this woman to design a church. She drew up the plan, and men began to dig and to build. When the building was finished, the roof was on, and everything was supplied except the priests, this admirable woman found a way to obtain them as well. She persuaded the king to send an embassy to the Roman emperor asking for teachers of religion, and the king sent one for that purpose. The emperor Constantine was warmly devoted to the cause of religion. When he learned what the embassy had come for, he welcomed the envoys gladly. He chose a bishop of great faith, wisdom and virtue, gave him many gifts, and sent him to the Iberians to make the true God known to them.

He was not content with granting the requests of the Iberians. Of his own accord he took the Christians in Persia under his protection as well. He learned that they were being persecuted by the pagans, and that their king, himself a slave to error, was devising all kinds of cunning schemes to destroy them. So he wrote to him, urging him to embrace the Christian religion himself and to honor those who professed it. His own letter will show his zeal for the cause more plainly.