GM 9

English

The boy [who was] thrown into a fire

I will not pass over events in the East that support the Catholic faith." The son of a Jewish glass-worker was studying and learning the alphabet with Christian boys. One day while the ritual of mass was being celebrated in the church of the blessed Mary, this Jewish boy approached with the other young boys to partake of the glorious body and blood of the Lord. After receiving the holy [Eucharist], he happily returned to his father's house. His father was working, and between embraces and kisses the boy mentioned what he had so happily received. Then his father, an enemy of Christ the Lord and his laws, said: 'If you have communicated with these boys and forgotten your ancestral worship, then to avenge this insult to the law of Moses I will step forward against you as a merciless murderer.' And he seized the boy and threw him into the mouth of a raging furnace; he was persistent and added wood so the furnace would bum hotter. But that compassion that had once sprinkled the dew of a cloud on the three Hebrew boys who had been thrown into a Chaldaean furnace [cf. Daniel 3:8-30] was not lacking. For it did not allow this boy, even though lying on a pile of coals in the middle of the fire, to be consumed in the least. When his mother heard that the father had evidently decided to incinerate their son, she hurried to save him. But when she saw the fire leaping from the open mouth of the furnace and flames raging here and there, she threw her barrette to the ground. Her hair was disheveled; she wailed that she was in misery and filled the city with her cries. When the Christians learned what had been done, they all rushed to such an evil sight; after the flames had been beaten back from the mouth of the furnace, they found the boy reclining as if on very soft feathers. When they pulled him out, they were all astonished that he was unhurt. The place was filled with shouts, and so everyone blessed God. Then they shouted that they should throw the instigator of this crime into these flames. Once he was thrown in, the fire burned him so completely that somehow scarcely a tiny piece of his bones was left. When the Christians asked the young boy what sort of shield he had had in the flames, he said: 'The woman who was sitting on the throne in that church where I received the bread from the table and who was cradling a young boy in her lap covered me with her cloak, so that the fire did not devour me.' There is hence no doubt that the blessed Mary had appeared to him. Then, having acknowledged the Catholic faith, the young boy believed in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. After he and his mother had been baptized in the waters of salvation, they were reborn. In that city many Jews were saved by this example.

Latin

Quid igitur in Oriente actum fuerit, ad conroborandam fidem catholicam non silebo. Iudaei cuiusdam vitrarii filius, cum apud christianos pueros ad studia litterarum exerceretur, quadam die, dum missarum festa in basilica beatae Mariae celebrarentur, ad participationem gloriosi corporis et sanguinis dominici cum aliis infantibus infans Iudaeus accessit. Quod sanctum adsumptum, gaudens ad domum patris revertitur; illoque operante, inter amplexos et oscula quae acceperat cum gaudio refert At ille Christo domino ac suis legibus inimicus ait: 'Si cum his infantibus communicasti, oblitus paterna pietate, ad ulciscendam Moysaicae legis iniuriam parricida in te durus exsistam'. Et adprehensum puerum in os fornacis ardentis proiecit, adiectaque ligna, quo vehementius exureretur, insistit. Sed non defuit illa misericordia, quae tres quondam Hebraeos pueros Chaldaico in camino proiectos nube rorolenta resperserat. Ipsa enim et hunc inter medios ignes, prunarum moles iacentem prorsus consumi non patitur. Licet cum audisset mater, quod scilicet filium communem pater deliberasset exurere, cucurrit ad liberandum eum. Sed cum vidisset incendia ab ore fornacis patulo huc sive illuc, flamma dominante, respergi, ornatum capitis ad terram proiecit, diffusaque caesarie, se miseram clamitans, civitatem vocibus impletur. Quod cum christiani, quid actum fuerat, didicissent, concurrunt omnes ad tam iniquum spectaculum, retractisque ignibus ab ore fornacis, inveniunt puerum quasi super plumas mollissimas decumbentem. Quo extracto, admirantur omnes inlaesum; clamoribus locus ille repletur, et sic Deum omnis populus benedicit. Conclamant etiam, ut auctorem huius sceleris in ipsas proicerent flammas. Proiectum autem ita totum ignis absorbuit, ut vix de ossibus eius parvum quodammodo relinqueretur indicium. Interrogantes autem infantulum christiani, quale ei inter ignes fuisset umbraculum, ait: 'Mulier, quae in basilicam illam, ubi panem de mensa accepi, in cathedra resedens, parvulum in sinu gestat infantem, haec me pallio suo, ne ignis voraret, operuit'. Unde indubitatum est, beatam ei Mariam apparuisse. Agnitam ergo infans fidem catholicam, credidit in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus sancti, ac salutaribus aquis ablutos una cum genetrice sua denuo sunt renati. Multi Iudaeorum exemplo hoc in urbe illa salvati sunt.