CAP. XXXV.
Of Menas the patriarch, and the miracle then wrought in the Hebrewe boye.
VVHen Anthimus byshop of Constantinople was deposed (as I saide before) Epiphani∣us tooke his rowme: after the deceasse of Epiphanius, Menas (in whose time a wor∣thie miracle was wrought) succeeded him in the byshopricke. There was an olde cu∣stome at Constantinople, that if there remained many portions of the pure & immaculate body of Christ our God, yong children which went to schoole shoulde be called to eate them. When it was done, a certen mans childe, in religion an Hebrewe or Iewe, in trade of life a glasiar, kept company with the other children: who after yt his parents demaunded the cause that made him tarie so longe behinde, tolde them plainely the matter as it was, and howe that he eate for companye with the o∣ther boyes. The Hebrewe hearing this, boyled within for anger, was all set on rage and furie: he tooke the boye and threw him into the firie fornace, where he vsed to make his glasse. The mother* 1.1 missinge the childe, sought him out, yet coulde not finde him: she went throughout the citie, and to euery streete calling vpon God with deepe sighes and lamentable teares. The third day after, as she sate at the doore of her husbands shop, being nowe pitifully wasted with weeping, she gaue out sighes, and withall called the boy by his name, the childe knowinge the mothers voyce aunswered her out of the fornace. The mother burst open the doores, and in she went, she was no sooner in but she espied her child in the middes of the hot burning coales, yet preserued that the fire toutched him not. The childe being asked whether he felt not great heate, and howe it came to passe that he was not burned to ashes, made aunswere sayinge: A woman clad in purple came very oft vnto me, rea∣ched me water to quenche the firie flames which compassed my body, last of all gaue me meate as oft as I was an hungred. Iustinian hearinge of this, thought good that the boye with his mother