Acts of the Martyrs and Saints, Volume 4

Mar Jacob of Edessa.

I who am in the struggle. See how the hero of one who revealed is blessed, the prophet, and how he casts the powerless, not-mighty one into the arena.

While those righteous ones were being built up and cleansed, he was being victorious: his mouth did not cease from the praise of God. Neither for Satan the adversary nor for the righteous, or the living and hidden one: that which the earth [gave], he lives in it and Satan has encamped. He saw the arena and how it was for him, and the flesh was victorious: who would dare as if to go to those strivings? He saw that they are not like a human being and not like all of them: and he took the mountain and entered that destruction, he set his [standard]. He saw that it is not from the earth, the true one (1) to where: and he left to serve from labor and he labored for life. A servant and a minister, he shall bless the blessedness that was not served: that is cut off to the arena that he may not be overcome (2) from labor. While he does not leave while he is being cut off from the truth: and he was seeing the human being as a stranger and he does not release him. While Satan is disturbed with blood and he was troubled: the prophet spoke and called in the blood and cleansed the altar. While the striving of the body is cut off from that [of the] how: and the child of the [suffering] ones went out and the minister [of] the body. While he encouraged him that the foreign prophet should not finish: and he did not lead him that he may bear hope between the kingdom. While he lived between and where he dared and made an altar. And he saw that the arena is a foreign angel that met [him]. While he was daring in the compassion of blood and worked with blood: Satan casts [away] from him the spring, for him the child shall drink.