Laudatio sanctae Barbarae

12. Of our father among the saints, John the presbyter of Damascus, an encomium on the holy and glorious martyr of Christ, Barbara. 1. The glory and grace and renown of the saints and of the victory-crowned martyrs of piety surpass, by common consent, every composition of encomia, and it is set far above the molding that is gathered from rhetorical speeches and the rantings of the sophistical art. And, I think, even those who are exceedingly skilled in such sciences, and who have devoted and consumed their whole life in such pursuits and studies, would be struck with amazement and at a loss before the magnitude of the subject—let alone we who are unlearned and inexperienced, and who have not tasted even with the tip of a finger, as the saying goes, of this experience and skill and of logographic reflection. But not for this reason should we, as it were, grown dizzy at the undertaking of the discourse, and seized by cowardice, and shrinking back, leave ourselves and the present audience, fond of hearing, wholly without a share of the benefit that, as is likely, accrues from such great contests. Come then, having called upon the aid from above of Christ, the overseer and judge of such struggles, propitious and as a helper, let us sketch in words, and as far as possible set before our eyes, her who is now rightly praised by us—

and whose all-people festival we celebrate today, of the victory-crowned martyr Barbara, of her whole contest, let us set forth the substance briefly, so that, having perceived the divine power that invisibly strengthens and nerves the martyrs, we may gain for the soul no ordinary profit and improvement—not attempting to exalt her struggles with the sounds of eloquence and with words. For they have no need of the help that comes from speeches; rather, we go through the very deeds themselves, as it were, in plain diction. 2. But rise up for me now, O Christ-loving and martyr-loving assembly, and having wrapped up and drawn in the mind from its wandering toward outward things, listen closely to what is said. For it is absurd, when it comes to worldly spectacles—I mean horse-races or wrestling-grounds, or any of the other such athletic contests—to run together eagerly and to wish to see the rivalry of the contest and the clash of the opponents with rapt attention, and not to depart before—even if ten thousand things distract—one has watched the one who carries off the victory, who takes up the prize and binds on the crown, although they carry away no benefit for themselves from there.

Here, where a soul-profiting and spiritual theater lies before us, having as its judge not one of the kings upon earth, but the all-sovereign Christ our God, who rules over all things visible and invisible, and as its spectators the thousands and ten thousands of the heavenly armies and powers, and as its contestant the celebrated and all-desired Barbara, the victory-crowned martyr of Christ, and as its adversaries not merely one or two, but first, as the Apostle says: For we do not wrestle against blood and flesh, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places—that is, because of the heavenly things. And besides these, also her own spirit according to the flesh, and the worldly rulers and authorities, whom the all-pure lamb of Christ, Barbara, had as her wrestlers, composed of visible and invisible enemies. 3. Since such a spectacle of contests is set before us, shall we not hasten to behold these things, and refresh ourselves with their clashes and entwinnings and grips of both sides, and observe the victory of our holy victor and victory-crowned martyr?

and seeing the hateful demons defeated and put to shame and falling, while the angelic hosts cry out shouts of triumph and with victory-chants of applause praise and honor the glorious victor, and Christ himself, as the judge of the contest, rising from his royal throne, as in the case of Stephen the first martyr, and holding out the crowns, and receiving the victory-bearing woman dripping with sweat, escorted by angels, and embracing her, and installing her in the heavenly bridal chambers and nuptial halls—what is more delightful to lovers of spectacles than such a sight, or sweeter, or more profitable? For "Bless," says Basil, the sacred teacher of the Church, "those who have genuinely borne witness, that you may become a martyr by choice, and may come forth without blood, and without scourges, and without tortures." Is there any other pursuit or enterprise more profitable than such a contemplation, and offering greater wealth? It does not seem so to me. But what has happened to me, O friends? Before we approach the beginning of the contests, the discourse has urged us on toward the end. Come then, let us call it back, and let us now step upon the forecourt of the martyrdom, and begin the detailed narrative. 4.

The Word of the all-good and merciful God, seeing his own handiwork—which from the beginning he made in his own image and to which he entrusted dominion over earthly things—carried off from the delight of paradise by the deception of the noetic serpent through the sensible one, and thereafter enslaved, and wholly subjected not only to corruption but also led away into manifold wanderings and passions of dishonor, and so darkened in the eyes of the soul by the gloom of impiety as to have abandoned the truly existing God and to have offered worship to wood and stones and insensate matter, and driven down and cast by the evil and apostate demon into the lowest depths of Hades and impiety—he did not endure the insolence of the accursed tyrant nor the hopeless ruin of the erring man. Rather, taking up his own creation in pity, the good Shepherd put on the fleece from a virgin who knew no marriage, by which, having lured the adversary and conquered him by the cross, he justly cast him out of his tyranny, since he had unjustly armed death against the one who was wholly without experience of sin, in accordance with which death was ordained. For he was not subject to the penalties and punishments of death, who had altogether no taste of sin.

5. Therefore the one who unjustly destroyed him will justly be destroyed in turn, and he will be deprived of the wealth he possessed. For his destruction is the casting out and fall of his authority; for the demonic race was created immortal by the Creator. And the Lord also said at the time of his passion: "The ruler of this world is coming, and he will find nothing in me"—that is, no field of his seeds, no trace or scent or shadow of sin. For "he committed no sin," to speak prophetically, "nor was deceit found in his mouth." Therefore he also said again, "Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out"—that is, he will fall from his tyranny and be removed. Therefore, by his own resurrection having restored and renewed our lump, he thenceforth sends the holy apostles to the ends of the whole inhabited world, proclaiming to mortals the saving message, and leading them back to their own Maker, and dispelling the darkness of godlessness by the flashes of the Spirit, and obliterating error, and teaching the knowledge of God. From there, as when fire lays hold of a many-timbered and far-spreading forest, it is swiftly raised into a towering flame and is transmitted by passage to the neighboring parts; and it cannot keep its brightness and energy in concealment, but makes it manifest to all, even to those settled far away.

Thus, then, the divine fire, which the Lord of the earth came down from above to cast upon the earth—the fire that consumes all sin, and every base and material condition and disposition—passes through the apostles and their successors into human souls. And those souls that were smooth and tender and fit for remolding, and that longed for and awaited their own Maker and Redeemer from the captivity that encompassed them, it straightway wiped clean and purified of the stain of sins, and fashioned them into godlike, luminous, and radiant souls. But those who willingly received in their depths the quality of impiety, and who, like bats, were unwilling to receive the brightness of the sun into their own eyes even when it shone, but chose to live in darkness and to wallow continually in the mire—these it sent on to the final fire of Gehenna, since they willingly desired to be incurably sick. 6. But not such was the all-holy and most pure soul of the all-praised martyr Barbara. Rather, having received the radiance of faith, and having compared the light with the darkness, and having seen, in a transcendent way, how incomparable is the difference, and possessing the divine knowledge in contrast to the error and darkness of abominations, she straightway, like good and rich soil, seized the heavenly seed and, diligently cultivating it with the labor of the commandments, bore fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold, setting ascents in her heart and advancing toward the perfection of the virtues.

So then, the prophetic oracle has reached its fulfillment: "And all the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as much water covering the seas"—that is, the assemblies of the nations, the prophet figuratively calling the nations "seas" by the grace of prophecy. But the demon who hates good and loves wickedness could not bear to see the multitude of those being saved advancing day by day. For he who in the beginning envied Adam and his wife their life in paradise would scarcely have endured the countless myriads ascending—not into a perceptible and earthly paradise, but into heaven, from which he himself has been cast out like an iron missile—beheld by faith in Christ. The tempter, then, asks for the trial; for he has no authority over anyone unless he receives it. But just as long ago he heard God boasting in his own servant and saying, "Have you considered my servant Job with your mind, that there is no man like him on the earth, blameless, just, true, God-fearing, abstaining from every evil thing?"—immediately that one, struck with envy, replied, "Does Job fear the Lord for nothing?" and so on. "But send me, that I may touch his flesh, if he does not bless you to your face." Then God, wishing to display his own servant to all as steadfast and unconquerable even in the last dangers, grants him the request, so that the boast might not seem to have been spoken at random.

Thus also then, when the all-wicked one had heard the Lord declaring in praise concerning the Church, "And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it," naming the gates of Hades as the manifold forms of punishments that thrust men down into Hades and death, he shamelessly demands the trial again. And indeed, having received the authority, he chose from then on instruments full of impiety and equal to his own cruelty of manner, and appointed them as governors and rulers; and he publishes a decree universally through them, that the worship of Christ should cease, that sacrifices be offered to idols, and that those who contradict be put to death without mercy by all kinds of punishments. From this, every age and rank, both male and female, was mercilessly mowed down like grass—those who purposed to keep the faith of Christ inviolate and untouched until death. 7. At that time, then, when the impious Maximian was reigning and Marcian was governing, there was a certain governor, it says, by the name of Dioscorus, exceedingly rich, but raving mad over the worship of lifeless idols. He had an only-begotten little daughter, by the name of Barbara, distinguished by the beauty of her comeliness and shining forth by the dignity of her character. Having built a high tower, then, he shut the virgin up there, so that she might not be seen by men, because of the blooming and flashing radiance and splendor of her beauty. Dwelling there, then, and resting free from the tumults outside, she stirred up pious thoughts and cultivated and nourished them; for solitude knows how to become the mother of slender and most noble thoughts.

And she abhorred the error and worship of idols, as leading down to the pit of Hades, but she embraced and welcomed the true faith of the Christians, and the venerable confession of the holy and consubstantial Trinity, as leading up to the heavens; and the discourses concerning the immortality of the soul, and concerning the kingdom of heaven, and the enjoyment of the incorruptible things, and concerning Gehenna and the endless punishment there, and in addition to these, she pictured in her mind and unrolled the unstable and unsteady revolution of the temporary things of this world; and the lamp-bearing virgins, who are joined to the incorruptible bridegroom Christ in the heavenly bridal chamber, and who delight in the secret blessedness within, she always imagined. And she longed, and desired, and prayed to be deemed worthy of that all-blessed portion and inexpressible joy and unutterable glory. 8. While the soul of the chaste and pure virgin was thus busied with such contemplations, her father appeared. And when many magnates instructed him and urged that he make much of her union and connection in marriage, he kept urging her to consent to this. But she, spitting out such words as nonsense and vexatious, and gazing sternly with anger at the one who had begotten her, wholly shook off this soul-harming exhortation, enjoining him no longer to bring any memory of such a matter to her.

For the virgin considered it laughable and full of every absurdity, once she had wholly dedicated and joined herself to the heavenly and immortal bridegroom, that she should yield to the Greek mire, where idols wallow in muddy pools like worms. Her father, then, at that time building a bathhouse with great zeal, ordered the craftsmen to construct two light-bringing windows toward the south, and departed for some region. But Barbara, the servant and bride of the Trinity, having inspected the work of the building, compelled the workmen to fit three windows into the structure. And returning, and running back to her own tower, the beautiful virgin sees the lifeless and senseless idols, to which her father was bringing reverence, and indeed, filled with the Holy Spirit and taking up a zeal inspired by God and fiery, she spat upon their shameful faces, aptly speaking the melody of the prophet David: Let those who make you become like you, and all who trust in you. O truly blessed and God-loving soul! O maiden boiling with faith,

adorned with faith! O maiden who by divine understanding mocked her father's folly and madness! O daughter who by the firmness of her mind recalled the simplicity and deceit of Eve, our first mother! That woman, having received a mere assault of the enemy, was straightway overthrown; but this one not only sternly repelled his allurements, but even spat in his very face through the idols. For against the originator of evil who works and deceives through them, she stretched out, sent forth, and hurled down the insult of her spitting. 9. But when her father returned from his journey abroad, and was angry and indignant with the builders over the alteration of his own ordinance, because of the addition of the threefold window, they transferred the blame to the command of his daughter. And he, having learned from her the reason for the triple window, the all-praiseworthy one, seizing the opportune occasion, openly theologized the glory of the Trinity, urging the unbeliever to saving faith. "Yes," she says, "for the Trinity enlightens every man coming into the world.

For this perceptible light is a creature and product of the light understood and worshiped in three suns that hold fast to one another, and a most faint and dim image and shadow. But he who had been raised in impiety and was an advocate of darkness, as if struck in the eye of his soul by the lightning of the thrice-radiant Godhead through the clear and unveiled confession of the all-glorious maiden, and rather darkened by the firmness of the flash, became filled with madness, and boiling over with rage, drew his sword and rushed—the man darkened in mind—to slaughter his only-begotten daughter, having overstepped the bounds of both piety and nature, because she had pointed out to him the path of life. Truly, not only from a flowering plant is a beautiful and most fragrant rose produced, but also from an impious root the fruit of piety often springs up. Here the patriarch Abraham is a witness, and for this reason he was called the father of the nations, of those who have emulated his faith, being the first to depart from his father's polytheism and godlessness. Truly, in this also the divine foretelling of our Savior Jesus Christ has been fulfilled, which raises up daughter and bride against father and mother and mother-in-law—the new and recent against the old and foolish—and divides the worse from the better.

10. What then did the all-glorious Barbara do? Seeing her father's utterly abominable assault—or rather, pitying him for his murderous intent—she opened by prayer the greatest rock lying at hand, and through the midst of it she rushed to the other side of the mountain. O the wonder! The rock, split open, receives the lamb into its bosom; and her father and pursuer, more insensible than the stones, was rather being petrified by his hardness of heart, and was being changed into a stony resistance. And not even the paradox of the wonder was able to soften the hard and inhuman part of his soul, but crossing over the mountain he sought her by questioning. And indeed, having found her and scourged her, dragging her by the hair and hauling her down from the mountain, he returns again and shut the blessed woman up in a small house. And having made known her case to the governor, he handed her over to be tortured, having put him under oath by the gods to consume her with bitter punishments. So the governor, having taken his seat on the tribunal, ordered the martyr to be brought before him. And when he saw the blooming comeliness of her face, he was astonished and marveled at the brightness of her appearance; and he began to try her with flatteries, forcing himself to persuade her, and to win her over with blandishments. For this is the devil's first bait. For either he attempts to charm and soften a person by pleasures and praises, or to frighten and terrify him with threats and

by punishments. So when he had emptied his entire former quiver, and saw the athlete of God spurning worldly things—charms and all earthly glory and luxury—counting them as a flower of grass, easily corrupted and quickly withered, and abhorring his urgings and enchantments as the venom of a serpent and deadly poisons to be shunned, he straightway turned to the other kind of temptations. And when he saw that she likewise mocked his threats, filled with rage, as one who had missed his mark, he spoke to her: What then do you wish, little maiden? To sacrifice to the gods, or to be consumed by bitter punishments? To whom the martyr, with steadfast character and bold demeanor, in few words confessed her pious faith aloud, and pilloried the folly and impiety of the godless tyrants. What did she say? I, she says, am ready to sacrifice to my Lord Jesus Christ, who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. But your gods the prophet rightly mocked: They have a mouth, and they shall not speak; they have eyes, and they shall not see; they have ears, and they shall not hear; they have noses, and they shall not smell; they have hands, and they shall not touch; they have feet, and they shall not walk; they shall not cry out in their throat. May those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them. For just as the venerable name of God has been falsely applied to them by you, so they are devoid of and bereft of life-giving power. 11.

At this the utterly vile and most reckless governor was struck with amazement, and in boiling fury he ordered the martyr to be stripped and her flesh mercilessly scraped with ox-hide thongs, and the wounds inflicted on her to be wiped with haircloth rags and cloths, so that her whole body was dyed with blood. Woe, what a confession was yours, revered and holy, O Barbara, glorious victor of Christ—a confession you made without fear and without reservation before all, through the Holy Spirit, and you spoke of God in the hearing of men, and of the angels who watched your contest, and of the demons who invisibly waged war against you alongside your visible adversaries. This confession the Lord recorded in the heavens, and confessed before his own Father, the source of light and ruler of all, and again he will confess and proclaim it with zeal! Woe, what noble endurance and steadfastness was yours—by which you struck terror into the devil and his apostate demons, and moved the holy angels to wonder and praise; by which you dissolved the error of idols like a spider's web, and strengthened and confirmed the true faith!

12. When the judge saw the saint's constancy and steadfastness, he ordered her to be cast into prison for the time being, until he should consider with what harsher tortures he might assail her. But in the middle of that night a light shone around her, exceeding bright, in which the Lord of glory appeared, consoling her anguish and grief by his manifestation, and emboldening her with encouraging words for the contests to come: "Take courage, Barbara," he said, "for the greatest joy will come to be in heaven and on earth because of your contest. Do not fear the tyrant's threats, nor be afraid. For I am with you, and I will deliver you from all the blows brought against you." And immediately the wounds vanished from her body. And having said these things, the Lord of the heavens returned again to the heavens. And the true martyr and handmaid of Christ rejoiced greatly, and was filled with gladness and joy and exultation at Christ's encouragement. And rightly indeed, O thrice-blessed maiden, did you rejoice! For the cause of gladness is the only true cheerfulness and delight.

unchangeable and irremovable. O truly blessed are your eyes, deemed worthy to see the Lord of glory, before whom the Cherubim in heaven do not dare to gaze, nor the many-eyed orders! O all-blessed ears, which received the sound of the words of God! O soul worthy of admiration and thrice-blessed, which he comforted with the exhortations of his own mouth—he who rules over heavenly and earthly and subterranean things, and is the God of all comfort! You, while still in the flesh, the bride of Christ, have received the pledge of the kingdom of heaven as the manifest token of your whole dowry. Therefore you have regarded and reckoned the experience of pains as the arrows of infants and the bites of fleas; and charmed by the love of him who appeared, and strengthened in soul, you said: Who shall separate me from the love of Christ? Tribulation? Or distress? Or famine? Or persecution? Or scourges? Or dangers? For I am persuaded that neither life, nor death, nor angel, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate me from the love of Christ.

13. When morning came, the martyr was led to the judgment seat, for the ruler had so ordered. And when he saw her bruises gone and her body whole and sound, not having even the slightest laceration, the demented and frenzied man said, "You see how the gods take your part and love you, since they have even healed your wounds." But the martyr, laughing at his madness and folly and derangement, replied, "Your gods are like you: deaf and blind, senseless and motionless, unable to help themselves—how could they heal me, who destroy their people-deceiving vanity? But the one who healed me is Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, whom you are not fit by nature to see with your profane eyes and calloused soul." Then that utterly defiled man, inflamed with rage by these words like a wild beast, ordered her sides to be scraped vigorously, and torches of fire to be applied to her wounds, and her head to be struck with a hammer as on an anvil. But she, gazing intently into heaven, said, "You know, O Lord, who know the heart, that I have come to you because I longed for you; do not forsake me until the end." And so the noble martyr of Christ nobly endured this torment, having risen above not only womanly weakness and cowardice but human nature itself. For how could she have endured so many outrages and bitter and painful punishments, had she not transcended the body of humiliation, strengthened and made mighty by the power of the Spirit invisibly. 14.

But even when these things happened, the servant and advocate of the devil did not take his fill of madness; he turned his mind, a very spring of wickedness, to another kind of torture, having within him the leader of all evil, the begetter and inventor, the dragon, the man-slayer from the beginning and hater of mankind. He ordered, then, it says, the governor that the martyr's breasts be cut off with a sword. And as these were being cut off, the lamb of Christ, looking up to heaven, said: Do not cast me away from your face, O Lord, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. And this blow too the martyr received with endurance and thanksgiving. Is there, then, for you, all-wicked demon, any other device of malice more grievous than this stored up in the depth of your soul? Is there any other form of torment more painful to the female nature that has been conceived by you, or left remaining? Has your mind not grown weary in inventing tortures against the martyr? Add, if it seems good to you, yet others; for you will find a diamond, or rather a soul unbroken and harder than the diamond itself, bearing as an anvil that rebounds the strokes of your hammers. It is hard for you against

to kick against the goads. For by as much as you multiply the punishments, by so much do you increase the crowns for the martyr, that all-lauded maiden, and, even against your will, you will make the prizes of victory more splendid, and, though you do not wish it, you will procure them. But for yourself you multiply the shames, being defeated in each wrestling and assault, and falling, and being overturned on your back, and you heap up more and more endless torments, and the flaming unquenchable coals, upon your all-wicked head. 15. But it comes upon me to marvel also at the inhuman and brutish character of the father of the blessed one according to the flesh, estranged as he was from the pious mind according to the spirit, and far from a father's disposition. Truly, O pitiless father, in cruelty and inhumanity you have surpassed even the irrational beasts themselves. For those creatures fight to the death on behalf of their offspring when they see them being harmed by anyone; but you, seeing your own and only-begotten daughter, as it were under a mattock, ruthlessly having her womanly, milk-bearing members cut off with swords, did not even feel shame at the outrage against nature, nor were you bent by so many blows, being stone-like and insensible in heart. But why do we marvel, brothers, at those who are drunk with the error of impiety, and wholly possessed by the madness of Satan?

For just as the victorious martyrs, having become possessed by the divine Spirit through their love for Christ, conquered nature and rose above it, and came to be in a state beyond nature, so too the persecutors of Christ and of these martyrs, being full of the evil spirit and having enslaved themselves to the apostate power, themselves slipped and fell outside nature—not to something better, but to something worse. And just as those were exalted as far above the human condition, so these were plunged as far below it, and became like the murderous demons—and very fittingly so. For those who come to Christ become imitators of Christ through the same virtue; but those who subject themselves to the yoke of the devil become, of course, similar and comparable to him. But let us see what the adversary and opponent again devises and contrives against the venerable and chaste Virgin through his own henchmen. 16. For seeing that she bravely endures and withstands the tortures of the body, he contrives against her soul a torment unbearable and, as he thinks, worthy of shame. And it truly is such, and harsher than the former ones. But to suffer for Christ, even if something seems to have in it reproach and disgrace, is nevertheless more venerable than every adornment, and more seemly and more honorable. For the governor, he says, orders her to be led naked in procession through that entire surrounding region and to be scourged with unbearable blows.

You surely know, beloved, how much shame and disgrace this matter brings upon virgins, and especially upon this holy girl, of whom, so to speak, not even the sun was previously able to take its fill. And he compelled her not only to be led around one marketplace and street, or a second, but also to move through villages and cities and townships. For all that surrounding region, he says. Truly this trial is more grievous and more burdensome to shamefaced and modest girls than any burning and pain of scourging. Nevertheless, she endured even this shame because of her affection and love for Christ, who for our sake endured the cross, despising shame. For the virgin had already stripped off the old man together with the passions, in which such shame of clothing also resides; therefore she did not consider it disgraceful. But just as the first-formed ones in paradise before the passions of sin were naked and were not ashamed, but when through disobedience the passions were stirred within them, they thought it disgraceful unless they wrapped their nakedness around with fig leaves; so too this virgin, having returned to that state before the transgression, in which there was no sin, clothed her shame together with the rest of the passions. Nevertheless, so that the impure ones, seeing her all-holy body going about uncovered, might not seem to mock, she looked intently toward heaven and said: "Lord God, who clothes the heaven with clouds, cover my body, which has been stripped bare for your sake, so that it may not be seen by these impious men.

And when she had said this, the Lord sent an angel and covered her with a white robe; and she went forth like a bride adorned and beautified, from her father's house to the prepared bridal chamber, escorted and guarded and attended in procession, crowned with the diadem of martyrdom, and with the athletic marks borne for Christ, and made august by the purple of her blood, and shining forth beyond all pearls, emeralds, and sapphires, and precious stones, and the brightness of woven gold. O the wonder! Those passionate and pleasure-loving men, shameless and utterly devoid of shame, stood around the martyrs who strove wholly naked for Christ, so that, as they thought, they might triumph over them, and at the same time passionately feast their licentious gaze upon them. But Christ, wrapping his own champion entirely in a garment of grace, walled off her sight from the shameful, the wanton, and the foul, and showed their scheme to be ineffectual, and dashed them of their expectation.

17. After leading her around that whole region, they brought her to a certain village, where they also found the governor. The governor, then, being at a loss as to what he should do next—for his every scheme was shown to be futile and profitless, and he was falling away from his hopes—issued a sentence against the much-suffering martyr, that she should undergo the penalty of capital punishment. Then her father, filled with great fury and satanic zeal, and having conceived within himself the very devil who was a murderer of man from the beginning, so that he might seem to offer a perfect worship to the idols and abominations served by him—or rather to the spirits and demons of wickedness that work through them—drew his sword and took her up to the mountain, desiring and longing to become with his own hand and by his own deed the perpetrator of the murder. But the beautiful and perfect dove, receiving the slaughter for Christ with great joy, turned to prayer and supplication. For she was hastening toward the prize of the upward calling, and was pressing on toward the soaring ascent into heaven. And nothing prevents us from heeding the words of the martyr's prayer, so that through them we may sanctify our hearing. "O Lord Jesus Christ, without beginning, not made by hands, crown of martyrs, who stretched out the heaven and founded the earth; who shut up the abysses and walled in the sea; who commanded the rain-bearing clouds to rain upon the evil and the good; who walked upon the sea as upon dry ground and did not wet your feet; who rebuked the wind and the sea and turned them into calm—

For all things obey your command, my Lord Jesus Christ, because they are your handiwork. Grant me, Lord, this request, and give grace to your servant, so that whoever remembers me in your holy name, and keeps the memorial of the days of my martyrdom, you, Lord, may not remember their sins on the day of judgment, but be merciful to them. For you know, Lord, that we are flesh and blood, the work of your immaculate hands." And when she had sent up the "Amen," she prayed again, saying: "Lord God of powers, creator of every breath and all flesh, who heals every disease and every infirmity, grant grace to your servant, so that all who come to the place where my relic lies, and where the sanctified waters are, you may bestow on them healing of soul and body, so that in these things too your all-holy name may be glorified, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit." And when she had sent up the "Amen," a voice came from heaven, saying: "Come, my sanctified champion, rest in the chambers of my Father who is in the heavens. And all that you have asked has been granted you by me." And when the blessed martyr of Christ heard these things, she came to the place, and was beheaded by the sword of her own father, together with Saint Juliana in the same place. And as Dioscorus her father was coming down from the mountain, fire fell from heaven and consumed him, so that neither his dust appeared nor was found. 18. Truly, the martyr set a noble end upon her contest.

For having brought the prayer of her contests to completion in the tower, she set upon them the crown as well. What then was the power of her prayer? She asked her own bridegroom Christ to be merciful to those who perform her memorial, granting forgiveness of their trespasses and healing of their diseases. And he, having received her supplication, promises to bring her request to fulfillment, and assures her of it through his own voice, and gives her the pledge. And she wholeheartedly stretched out her neck to the sword; and the child-murdering father pitilessly drove home the blow. And she was escorted to the heavenly dwellings and the rest prepared for her, while he was brought down to the murky recesses of Hades and the gloomy chambers and the punishment prepared for him. And she had radiant angels leading her on toward the ascent, while he had hideous and fearful demons dragging him unwillingly toward the descent. O how might one worthily lament, most wretched and miserable man! How did you not shudder to cut off the holy head of the martyr! How did your hand not grow numb, to bring a deadly stroke upon your own daughter? But truly you received the swiftest recompense of merciless inhumanity, and from evil seeds you reaped sheaves more evil still, and the deserved vengeance of Judas the betrayer came upon you. For a thunderbolt borne from heaven, a lightning flash, reduced your little body to ashes, and here the Sodomitic fire struck you with lightning, while there the unquenchable flame of Gehenna will receive you. For you were no longer fit to live, lest you be called, pointed at with the finger, the father of the martyr.

Your house can no longer bear to receive you, since you have driven out from it the virgin, that maiden of all praise. 19. But to me, O lamb of Christ, and dove, and bride, and whatever other name is beautiful and graceful and precious, hail! For you have run the course of your contests with noble courage. Hail, you who have received prizes worthy of your struggles. Hail, to whom many rewards are owed for many contests. Hail, you who by prudent reason mastered the passionate stirrings of the flesh. Hail, you who in the youth of your age guided the senses of the body in an elder's way and with understanding. Hail, you who promised to keep your virginity undefiled and unstained for Christ even before your martyrdom. Hail, you who did not soil the beauty of the body with passions, but dedicated and set it before the Creator untouched. Hail, you who in the tower, as in a secure fortress and a place of prayer for virgins, sent up frequent and pure prayers to God, and by the unerring contemplation of things were led up to the Creator, and without satiety delighted in the one who is truly beautiful and lovely. Hail, you who in the cleansing bath of bodily defilement symbolically depicted the Trinity through the triple light-bringing of the windows, and typologically traced out the mystical and saving baptism of souls by the triple giving of light. Hail, you who at once most clearly confessed in theological terms the faith of the consubstantial Trinity

with her mouth. Rejoice, you who boldly proclaimed the one of the Holy Trinity who became man for our salvation. Rejoice, you who spat upon wealth and luxury, and fabrics of silk thread, and precious stones, and pearls set in gold, and all bodily adornment and beauty, and the enjoyment of earthly delights, and exchanged these for eternal and incorruptible goods, which surpass the sight of eyes, and the hearing of ears, and every sense and thought. Rejoice, you who bravely and manfully strengthened the tenderness of youth and the weakness of the female sex with resolute purpose. Rejoice, you who did not play the coward before the torments of punishments, but rather boldly gave yourself over to all kinds of instruments of torture and rackings. Rejoice, you who, while living in the flesh, were deemed worthy to see the glory of Christ, as the foremost of the disciples on the mountain, who beheld it with Elijah and Moses, were fittingly called blessed. Rejoice, you who endured for Christ the pains of whips, and scrapings with iron, and the chafing of the roughest garments of hair, and flows of blood, and blazings of fire, and the cutting off of limbs, and being led out naked, and the taking away of your head and life, so that you might receive thereafter a body immortal, flashing with the gleams of incorruption and clothed in the ineffable and unutterable robe of glory. 20. Men rightly marveled at your endurance; angels, as was fitting, applauded and hymned your contest; and the demons shuddered at your hymnody and steadfastness, and were clothed with shame and everlasting disgrace.

How the female and womanly nature is adorned and exalted, and is emboldened to manly courage by your contests, and is anointed! In you the first mother fittingly boasts and rejoices, as having acquired a little daughter who again wrestled down and overthrew the adversary dragon that had cast her down, and who recovered the victory and raised splendid trophies against him. You the Holy of Holies, the Theotokos and first mother, virgin and Mother of God, who alone and first glorified the female nature, and who rules over all males and females, heavenly and earthly, having been shown forth as mother of the one who rules over all—she saw you, in womanly and youthful flesh, cast down and mightily trample the one who boasted beyond measure and raged to wipe out the sea and to encompass the inhabited world like a nest. And delighted in your virtues, she took you by the arms and sat near and established you, and imparted to you the highest honor and boldness of speech, and brought you before the royal throne and set you there.

31. Every encomiastic word, then, that has been set loose upon the tongue on your account, and is extravagant, is dizzy and, fearing to approach, draws back. For to hymn worthily, O all-praised and worthy of praise, the transcendent excellences of your admirable virtues would be powerless. For it is the art of rhetorical eloquence, through a well-turned composition of words and ornate and smooth persuasiveness, to praise bodily beauty and fleshly comeliness, which consists of symmetry of limbs together with good complexion. And besides this, often strength, and good health, and the dignity of mortal nobility, and—if it should so fall—conspicuous rank, and the distinction of one's homeland, and abundance of wealth flowing and slipping away and easily changing. That all these things, running together at once, should be set before the word for praise is hard to procure and most laborious; yet all that the word has set forth in detail and enumerated are withered and corrupted like the flower of grass, and like the deceptive and phantasmal vision of pleasant dreams, appearing and passing by at once, sooner and in a brief time, and sometimes dissolved by time and

being changed, it correspondingly and consistently dissolves the labored harmony and interweaving of the encomia. But for you, O venerable and chaste virgin, and trophy-bearing and invincible martyr, the word will find most readily and without weariness, heaped up and gathered together in abundance, the things that are now named, and that people marvel at and count blessed and make worthy of note; not, however, things that perish and are dissolved and cause praises to drift idly into the air. For the virtue of your divine-like soul, and your kinship with the Creator, held together and preserved for you both the good and worldly things that belong to you, and made them unforgettable in memory and to endure for the whole age; or rather, it fashioned and increased them beyond measure. For the faithful man's is the whole world of goods, but the unbeliever's not even a single obol, the scriptural saying declared. For things present and things to come, and all that your bridegroom governs, have been granted and given to you as a dowry. 22. Since, then, you have won the victory on both sides against human praises, both by the brightness of the worldly life and by the splendor of the advantages of the soul, both of which you illumined and made radiant by the firmness of your martyrdom, go rejoicing to the heavenly tents of hymn-singers, leaving behind words molded by a fleshly tongue and confessing defeat with their voice. For if the renown of your achievements is beyond man, how is the fitting praise not beyond human thought? Go, then, O venerable and fair virgin, enjoying the rewards that are beyond the world.

Go where the word is silent, unable to describe in full the glory that surpasses word. Go to partake of the undiluted pleasure of goods beyond conception, where all understanding, which gathers knowledge from partial images, lies idle and simply at rest, while the mind eternally applies itself to things beyond nature and to things intelligible. Go where the many-branched deceit of sensible things and of the senses, and their revolving motion, has ceased and been done away. Receive back your victorious prizes, and your radiantly bright honors and rewards. Receive back the rest and refreshment that is your due for your sweats and labors in the arena. Receive back the victory-bearing crowns and the martyrs' diadems owed to those who have contended and do contend for Christ. Enjoy the inexpressible and inconceivable splendor and beauty of the Bridegroom. Enjoy the secret and mystical converse and union in the heavenly bridal chamber, than which nothing has ever been truly more blessed or more happy. Nothing of the manly deeds of those who have been most exceedingly renowned, of the torch-bearing virgins, has been left lacking for your renown, O bride of Christ, since you loved the Bridegroom Christ exceedingly, and were enchanted by love of him. Through him you have reckoned not only all things to be refuse, but you have preferred the Beloved above your own life and soul. How very lawfully you have striven the good contest, and have kept the faith unswerving, in times that are changeable and dangerous! How very blamelessly and unhinderedly you have completed the course of piety!

How exceedingly painful and grievous, and beyond human strength, were the tortures brought upon you for the love of Christ, which you endured with all your soul and with the greatest readiness. Therefore the crown of righteousness is also laid up for you, and having worthily bound it on, you have been crowned in the heavenly places. But not even here did Christ leave you without honor. For I live, he says, but those who glorify me I will glorify. Wherefore, just as he has promised, in your pool, where also your precious relics are approached by the faithful, there gush forth beyond streams the healings of all kinds of diseases, and of those afflicted with pestilential sores or any other sickness, and of those whose bodies are pierced through with other wounds, having touched the saving waters, they are more quickly washed clean of the deadly disease. And the place is notable and renowned to those who dwell round about and to those settled far away somewhere, and greatly sought after for healing by those in need. And not in that place alone has the beauty given to you and the healing grace been confined, but also to those who come to you everywhere throughout the world with fervent faith and celebrate your yearly memorial, the pestilential wounds are healed, and the unpleasant visitation and affliction of every age is put to flight, and demonic workings are driven away by your rebukes; indeed, they are also delivered from all dangers and circumstances, those who call upon you as a helper for their defense.

Do not then cease, pure ever-virgin, to watch over your suppliants with a compassionate eye, but also this paltry and faded little word of praise that has been addressed to you—falling far short of your transcendent worth, yet cared for by it to the best of its ability with no less a paltry zeal—receive gladly for its intent, and bending down and nodding in compassion, accept this most tiny gift, as your bridegroom Christ accepted the two mites from the poor widow, having regard not to the quantity of what was given but to the quality of the giver's disposition. May I find you also a gentle healer of my soul's and body's wounds, and a most ready protectress in all the afflictions that beset me.

And may you calmly still the impulses and leapings of my passions, so that, having ordered my life toward what is needful, and having crossed the worldly surge without being overwhelmed, and having come to anchor at the ageless life and the saving harbor, I may obtain through you, from the common and compassionate Judge, forgiveness for my measureless transgressions—since he rather forgives and pardons through your intercession and petition, even though he has already justly condemned and sentenced my negligence. And to all who in faith love your name, and honor it, and hold it in reverence, and flee to your protective intercession, may you be, O trophy-bearing Barbara, glorious in victory, celebrated in song, ever-remembered, and all-praised martyr, and most lawful athlete, the provider of the kingdom of the heavens, and a champion in every grievous circumstance, and an unashamed advocate before the all-good Christ our God, with whom to the unoriginate, unbegotten, and adorable Father, together with the consubstantial and life-giving Spirit, be glory, honor, and worship, now and always and unto the ages of ages. Amen.