St. Athanasius: The Paradise of the Holy Fathers

[Stone]

CHAPTER XXVII

OF THE VIRGIN WHO WAS IN CAESAREA OF PALESTINE

AND again there was a certain virgin who was the daughter of an elder in Caesarea, and having been beguiled and led astray by a man, he who led her astray taught her to bring an accusation against a certain reader of the church of the city. And the time having arrived when it was known [unto all] that she was with child, and being called upon by her father to confess her matter, she made an accusation against that reader. Now her father, the elder, because he believed [her] implicitly, made known the matter unto the Bishop, and the Bishop was a holy man, and a fearer of God, and one who did not hastily pass sentence of death or punishment upon any man, and then only when it was revealed unto him by God whether he who was accused before him was indeed guilty [or not]. So the Bishop went and shut himself up until the matter was made plain [unto him]; and because God informed him that the reader had never been nigh unto the woman he held him to be innocent, and condemned the virgin.