# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1860_S171
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

From the Ecclesiastical Present. 171

tales — supported by the above-mentioned canon (p. 227), "it could, amid so many attested and unquestionable wonders from the times of persecution, in truth not be hard or even unwelcome for us to accept a few wonders more."

It will suffice to pick out a couple of tales in order to show what we mean and to substantiate what we accuse the author of. Under May 18th he tells the story of Theodotus the tavern-keeper and the seven virgins (p. 150). He tells it without expressing a word of doubt, following the report — richly furnished with wonders — of a supposed eyewitness, Nilus. The seven virgins, having continued to confess their faith after manifold outrages, had been weighted with stones by order of the Roman governor Theoteknus and drowned in a pond. It then fell to Theodotus to draw the bodies of the martyred women out of the pond, and one of them, Thecusa, moreover appeared to him in a dream and encouraged him to perform this good work upon the bodies. Although the governor had posted guards at the pond, Theodotus sets out with his friends; it is a dark night and the rain pours down in torrents. They pass by the place of execution, where remains of burned bodies lie and heads of the beheaded are stuck up on stakes. But they hear an encouraging voice, see a shining cross, and soon afterward a torch that shows them the way. Indeed, two men in white garments also appear to the saint and say: "Be of good courage, Theodotus; the Lord Jesus Christ has inscribed your name among the number of the martyrs. We are those called Fathers; you will meet at the pond the holy Sosander under arms, whose sight will frighten the guards." So it happened: the guards fled before the man in the flaming armor. The faithful came to the pond, and it stormed so violently that the wind laid bare the bottom of the pond and the bodies of the virgins became visible by the light of the apparition. Theodotus and his companions drew them out and buried them "by the church of the patriarchs." But one among his companions became a traitor, and now begins the martyrdom of Theodotus. This too Löhe reports in detail, closely following Nilus. When the martyr had received the death-blow and his body was laid on the pyre, it was surrounded on every side by such a light that none of those who were to set it alight dared to approach. Guards were posted to watch over the body. Then the presbyter Fronto — to whom the martyr, even before his suffering began, had assigned his relics — came along the way with his she-ass. She was laden with old wine and, by the will of divine providence — Löhe passes over this last point in silence — lay down to rest at precisely the spot where the body of the holy martyr lay. The guards called out to Fronto and invited him to come into their hut. He accepted the invitation, pledged them in drinking, and gave them of his own old wine. Meanwhile they told him about the seven