The life of Eustathius and Theopistes
Hunting one day he came on a stag that stopped and looked back at him, and when he rode after it, it leapt a ravine and turned, and he saw a shining Cross standing between its antlers, and a voice from the Cross asked him why he was pursuing Him.
He went home and told his wife, and she said she had been told the night before in a dream that the whole household would come to God the next day. They went to the bishop and were all baptized; he was named Eustathius, his wife Theopiste, and their two boys Agapius and Theopistus. The family was scattered for years afterward and given back to one another again. Years later, under the emperor Hadrian, Eustathius was called to a sacrifice of thanksgiving after a victory, and would not come to the temple, and neither he nor his wife nor his sons would offer. They were shut in a brazen bull heated red, and so they died. When it was opened three days after, they lay unmarked, and many who saw it believed.
