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Life of St Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza
Mark the Deacon, tr. Hill, 1913
Chapter 69
But at dawn he called together the God-fearing clergy and the Christ-loving lay-folk,1 and likewise the admirable Cynegius and the governors, and told them how the boy had spoken concerning the Marneion. And when they heard they were astonied and with one mind said that according to the saying of the boy, even so it should be burned. Taking, therefore, the liquid pitch and the sulphur and the swine’s fat and mingling the three they anointed the inner doors, and having made a prayer they kindled the fire, and straightway all the temple took fire and was burned. And as many of the soldiers and of the strangers as were able seized out of the fire whatsoever they found, whether it was gold or silver or iron or lead.
Notes
- Christ-loving lay-folk. Here for the first time Mark uses this phrase (ὁ φιλόχριστος λαός, sometimes in the amplified form οἱ τοῦ φ. λ.). The word λαός in this phrase is not necessarily always opposed to κλῆρος, though it is sometimes, as here and in c. 75.