that he had undergone,
with free voice and radiant countenance that signified the grace that
dwelt in his soul, cried out, "We carry about these clean and holy
bones, O king, because we attest in due form our love of those
marvellous men to whom they belong: and because we would bring
ourselves to remember their wrestlings and lovely conversation, to
rouse up ourselves to the like zeal; and because we would catch some
vision of the rest and felicity wherein they now live, and thus, as we
call them blessed, and provoke one another to emulate them, strive to
follow in their footsteps: because moreover, we find thereby that the
thought of death, which is right profitable, lendeth wings of zeal to
our religious exercises; and lastly, because we derive sanctification
from their touch."

Again said the king, "If the thought of death be profitable, as ye say,
why should ye not reach that thought of death by the bones of the
bodies that are now your own, and are soon to perish, rather than by
the bones of other men which have already perished?"

The monk said, "Five reasons I gave thee, why we carry about these
relics; and thou, making answer to one only, art like to be mocking us.
But know thou well that the bones of them, that have already departed
this life, bring the thought of death more vividly before us than do
the bones of the living. But since thou judgest otherwise, and since
the bones of thine own body are to thee a type of death, why dost thou
not recollect thy latter end so shortly to come, and set thine house in
order, instead of giving up thy soul to all kinds of iniquities, and
violently and unmercifully murdering the servants of God and lovers of
righteousness, who have done thee no wrong, and seek not to share with
thee in present goods, nor are ambitious to rob thee of them?"

Said the king, "I do well to punish you, ye clever misleaders of the
folk, because ye deceive all men, counselling them to abstain from the
enjoyments of life; and because, instead of the sweets of life and the
allures of appetite and pleasure, ye constrain them to choose the
rough, filthy and squalid way, and preach that they should render to
Jesus the honour due unto the gods. Accordingly, in order that the
people may not follow your deceits and leave the land desolate, and,
forsaking the gods of their fathers, serve another, I think it just to
subject you to punishment and death."

The monk answered, "If thou art eager that all