Finally, he handed her over to the prefect of the city, Martianus. Dioscorus found his daughter, beat her, and placed her under guard, attempting to wear her down with hunger. One of them showed him the cave where St. Barbara in a crevice.Īfter a long and fruitless search for his daughter, Dioscorus encountered two shepherds on the same hill. His path became blocked by a hill, which opened up and concealed St. Barbara fled, but her father rushed after her. Dioscorus became enraged, grabbing a sword and almost striking her with it. When Dioscorus returned and saw the changes to the bathhouse, Barbara told him about how she had come to know about the saving power of the Son of God and the futility of worshipping idols. Simeon Metaphrastes comparing it to the stream of Jordan and the Pool of Siloam. The water of the bathhouse had great healing power, with St. Later, her footprints came to be imprinted on the stone steps. On one of the walls of the bathhouse, Barbara traced a cross into the marble with her finger. #Soulless robe windowsBy his orders, the workers prepared two windows on the south side, but Barbara, taking advantage of her father’s absence, asked them to make a third window, thereby forming a Trinity of light. After instructing her in the mysteries of the Christian Faith, he baptized Barbara, then returned to his own country.Īt this same time, a luxurious bathhouse was being built at Dioscorus’s home. Through the Providence of God, a priest arrived from Alexandria disguised as a merchant. Barbara met young Christian maidens in the city, and they taught her about the Creator of the world, the Trinity, and the Divine Logos. #Soulless robe fullHe therefore permitted her to leave the tower and gave her full freedom in her choice of friends and acquaintances. Dioscorus decided that his daughter’s temperament had been affected by her life of seclusion. Barbara warned her father that his persistence might separate them forever. Despite the entreaties of her father, she refused all of them. The fame of Barbara’s beauty spread throughout the city, and many sought her hand in marriage. The desire to know the True God so consumed her soul that Barbara decided to devote all her life to this goal, and to spend her life in virginity. Although her father and teachers offered them worship, she realized that the idols could not have made the surrounding world. Gradually, she became convinced that the soulless idols were merely the work of human hands. Soon she began to ask herself questions about the Creator of so splendid a world. By day she was able to gaze upon the wooded hills, the swiftly flowing rivers, and the meadows covered with a blanket of flowers by night the harmonious and majestic heavens twinkled and provided a spectacle of inexpressible beauty. From the tower, there was a view of hills stretching into the distance. He built a tower where only her pagan teachers were allowed to see her. Realizing Barbara’s extraordinary beauty, Dioscorus hid her from the eyes of strangers. After the death of his wife, he devoted himself to his only daughter. Her father, the pagan Dioscorus, was a rich and illustrious man in the Syrian city of Heliopolis. The Holy Great Martyr Barbara lived during the reign of Emperor Maximian (305-311).
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