e you now like as I should see our Lord raising Lazarus. And
then Maximian said to him: Believe us, for forsooth our Lord hath raised
us tofore the day of the great resurrection. And to the end that thou
believe firmly the resurrection of the dead people, verily we be raised
as ye here see, and live. And in like wise as the child is in the womb
of his mother without feeling harm or hurt, in the same wise we have
been living and sleeping in lying here without feeling of anything. And
when they had said all this, they inclined their heads to the earth, and
rendered their spirits at the command of our Lord Jesu Christ, and so
died. Then the emperor arose, and fell on them, weeping strongly, and
embraced them, and kissed them debonairly. And then he commanded to make
precious sepulchres of gold and silver, and to bury their bodies
therein. And in the same night they appeared to the emperor, and said to
him that he should suffer them to lie on the earth like as they had lain
tofore till that time that our Lord had raised them, unto the time that
they should rise again. Then commanded the emperor that the place should
be adorned nobly and richly with precious stones, and all the bishops
that would confess the resurrection should be assoiled. It is in doubt
of that which is said that they slept three hundred and sixty-two years,
for they were raised the year of our Lord four hundred and
seventy-eight, and Decius reigned but one year and three months, and
that was in the year of our Lord two hundred and seventy, and so they
slept but two hundred and eight years.

THE LIFE OF ST. SILVESTER.

Silvester was son of one Justa and was learned and taught of a priest
named Cyrinus, which did marvellously great alms and made hospitalities.
It happed that he received a Christian man into his house named Timothy,
who no man would receive for the persecution of tyrants, wherefore the
said Timothy suffered death and passion after that year while he
preached justly the faith of Jesu Christ. It was so that the prefect
Tarquinius supposed that Timothy had had great plenty of riches, which
he demanded of Silvester, threatening him to the death but if he
delivered them to him. And when he found certainly that Timothy had no
great riches, he commanded to St. Silvester to make sacrifice to the
idols, and if he did not he would make him suffer divers torments. St.
Silvester answered: False, evil man, thou shalt die this night, and
shalt ha