Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 2.djvu/164

152 152 ST. PHOTINA tbe rock. Bring me palm branches and I will plait tbem. Yon will take tbem and sell tbem, and twice or tbrice a year yon can bring me bread and water. First yon can get me a bottle to bold water." Tbe boatman perceiving tbat be was a boly man, cbeerfally agreed to do as be wisbed, and took bim in a little boat to the rock. Martinian saw tbat it was just sacb a place as be longed for, so be sang psalms and blessed the sailor. Tbe boatman asked if be sbould bring some wood tbat Martinian migbt build himself a hut, but he chose rather to feel the heat by day and the cold by night He rested there for seven years as if he were no longer in the world, and rejoiced in meditating on the Holy Scriptures. The devil failed in all his attempts to frighten him with storms; but at last he saw a ship coming, and thinking this a good opportunity of mining the saint and gaining his soul, he destroyed it with a storm and drowned all the people in it, except one young girl, who caught hold of a board and was washed up against Martinian*s rock. She called to him to help her. At first he would not, remembering how tbe devil had tempted bim under similar circumstances before. But seeing tbat unless he helped her, this woman was more sure to perish than Zoo bad been, he prayed God to provide a way of escape for her, and then he held out his hand and drew her out of the water. When be saw bow beautiful she was, he decided tbat it was better to be drowned than to live on an island in such dan- gerous company; so be told her slie would find bread and water there for two months, at the end of which the boatman would come and take her to her own country ; and he gave her his blessing and making the sign of the cross, he threw himself into the sea. Photina saw two dolphins take him up and swim away with him, she knew not whither. The dolphins put him safely ashore and after thanking Grod for his deliverance, he said, " Alas, what shall I do ? Whither shall I go ? I cannot escape from the pursuit of the devil. He found me out in the mountains and even in the midst of the sea." Then he remembered how Christ said to His disciples, " When they persecute yon in one city, flee to another," so for the rest of his life he fled from place to place. Wherever he happened to be when night came on, there he stayed, whether it was in a desert or in a city ; and when he had travelled through one hundred and sixty- four states he came to Athens, and went into the church. There he fell down on tbe floor and feeling his death was at hand he sent for the bishop who had been warned that a saint was near, and who came at once to bim. Martinian was not able to rise from the ground to meet bim, but begged the bishop to pray for him that he might have courage to appear before the tribunal of Grod: then he died. Meantime, Photina lived on the rock, and when, after two months, the boat- man came and saw a woman there instead of the hermit, he was frightened, and thinking she was a spectre, he was going away again. Photina called out to him not to be afraid for she was a Christian. But be was more alarmed than ever until she swore by Christ the King that she was a Christian and begged him to wait and hear what had happened. Then ' she told him everything and begged him to do for her as he bad always done for Martinian and not to despise her on account of her sex, because God Who made Adam created Eve also, and would reward him for his charity to her as if she were Martinian. Then she told him that next time he came he must bring with him, his wife and a monk's dress. He did so. Photina instructed the wife to get her some wool that she might spin it, and that her labour might repay tbem for bringing her food from time to time. She was twenty-five years old at the time of the shipwreck, and she lived six years on the rock and at last, one day when the boatman and his wife came, they found her dead and they took her to CaBsarea and told her story to the bishop, who ordered her to be reverently buried. AA,SS.i from the Life of St. Martinian by a con- temporary writer. The name of Pho- tina is not given in this old life, but by Metaphrastes.