Book of the Bee

Historical scan page 136

io8 THE BOOK OF THE BEE . of his Master had been. As they were going forth to be slain, they gave the laying on of hands of the priesthood to their disciples, Peter to Mark, and Paul to Luke. When Peter had been crucified, and Paul slain, together with many of those who had become their disciples, [.n^a] Mark and Luke went forth by night, and brought their bodies into the city. Now Paul’s head was lost among the slain, and could not be found. Some time after, when a shepherd was passing by the spot where the slain were buried, he found Paul’s head, and took it upon the top of his staff, and laid it by his sheep-fold. At night he saw a fire blazing over it, and he went in (to the city) and informed the holy bishop Xystus (Sixtus) and the clergy of the church ; and they all recognised that it was Paul’s head. Xystus said to them, ‘ Let us watch and pray the whole night, and let us bring out the body and lay the head at its feet ; and if it joins again to its neck, it will be certain that it is Paul’s.’ And when they had done so, the whole body was restored, and the head was joined to its neck as if the vertebrae had never been severed ; and those who saw it were amazed and glorified God. From his call to the end of his life was thirty-five years ; he went about in every place for thirty-one years ; for two years he was in prison at Caesarea, and for two years at Rome. He was martyred in the thirty-sixth year after the Passion of our Lord, and was laid with great honour in the magnificent royal catacombs in Rome. They celebrate every year the day of his commemoration on the twenty-ninth of the month of Tammuz1. [^Ao] Luke the physician and Evangelist was first of all a disciple of Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, and was afterwards baptised by Philip in the city of Beroea2. He was crowned with the sword by Horos3, the judge (or governor) of the emperor Tiberius, while he was preaching in Alexandria, and was buried there. Mark the Evangelist preached in Rome, and died and was buried there4. Some say that he was the son of Simon Peter’s wife, others 1 See Acta Sanctorum, xxvii, June 30. 2 Oxford MS. l_A:> h e. Aleppo. 3 Oxford MS. See Lipsius, Apostelgeschichten, ii. 2, pp. 356-360 ; Acta Sanctorum, lvi, Oct. 18. 4 See Lipsius, Apostelgeschichten, ii. 2, pp. 323-325 ; Ada Sanctorum , xii, April 25.