السيرة
In the days of Diocletian the command went out to persecute the Christians. The priest Julianus relates to us, as an eyewitness, the torments tasted by Ariston, Ammon, Marcel, and others among the martyrs in the city of El-Bahnasa (Oxyrhynchus — so named after a kind of Nile fish that the people of this city used to worship).
The governor of the city, named Culcianus, summoned them to the court square, and with a mocking smile said, "Here they are, the followers of the deluding heresy, the rejecters of the laws of the empire, the violators of justice, the deniers of the holy religion of our gods that do not die!"
The faithful met this mockery with great calm, and answered him with all courtesy and good manners that they were neither heretics nor deniers of justice, but that they would not forsake their God who loved them. Then the governor asked them to abandon their philosophical words of their own accord and sacrifice to the goddess of the empire, so that they might receive honors and be counted his friends; but they refused outright.
The governor commanded that they be bound with chains on their hands and feet, and cast into prison so that they might reconsider before violence and savagery were practiced against them.
When they were summoned the next day, they were brought to the place of martyrdom, which was packed with the pagan multitudes who had come to gloat at the sight of the Christians under torment.
The governor raised his right hand to silence the clamoring crowds, and addressed his words to one of the Christians brought forward for martyrdom, saying to him, "See, Marcel, how your folly has led you, so that the ravening beasts shall be loosed upon you and your companions, and you shall be ground by their fangs.
Look to your life and abandon your superstitions and obey the commands of the emperor by sacrificing; otherwise I call the gods that do not die to witness against you that nothing of your bodies shall remain, for I shall burn whatever is left of you after the beasts are loosed upon you."
This man and his companions paid no heed to any of these threats; rather they declared their acceptance of every pain for the sake of their Christ. Then the governor began to mock them — how could they worship the Crucified One whom Pilate had condemned, his case standing on record in the Roman palace? And when the martyrs began to speak of the redemption and the Cross, he tried to stop them from speaking.
At last, when the governor sensed that his words were of no avail, he gave the signal to open the doors of the cages of the hungry beasts. Indeed, four bears were loosed, rushing with terrible speed and running toward them across the square, only to throw themselves down at their feet and lick them, as though they had been turned from their savage nature into gentle lambs.
The multitudes were astonished at the sight, and the governor was enraged and reckoned it surpassing sorcery. He ordered a huge furnace prepared, and when the flame had risen high, the men were cast into its midst; yet they were joyful and exultant, praising God, and they came out of it the more comforted. But the governor would not look to God's care and providence over them; he reckoned it sorcery.
He ordered them killed and their bodies thrown into the fire. Some of the faithful gathered their relics, which were received by a pious deaconess named Yssicia