Their story
Martian, a native of Cæsarea in Palestine, withdrew at eighteen to a nearby mountain and lived there twenty-five years among holy hermits. A courtesan of Cæsarea named Zoe heard of his holiness and set out to seduce him. One stormy night she came to his door crying that she was lost and afraid of wild beasts. He let her in. As she tried to tempt him and he felt himself weakening, he suddenly thrust his legs into the fire, saying to himself that this fire was nothing compared with the fire that awaits the sinner.
Zoe, horrified, was ashamed of her purpose and her way of life. She wept and asked him for a rule of life. He sent her to St. Paula, who ran a convent at Bethlehem, and Zoe became a model of penance, eating once a day or not at all for two days, sleeping on the ground and mourning her past.
When his legs healed, Martian looked for a place safer from temptation and found a cave in a rock a little off the coast. He lived there alone for six years. Then a ship was wrecked nearby, and a girl among the passengers saved herself on his rock. Unwilling to share his retreat but unable to drive her off, he told her a boat would come in two months with his supplies; she could have his bread and water and ask the captain to take her to land. Then he threw himself into the sea and swam ashore. He wandered for two years without a home and finally died at Athens.
The girl, meanwhile, had come to love the solitary life. When the boat came she asked the captain for a warm dress, wool to spin, and bread and water. He came back with his wife bringing all she needed, and from then on visited every three months during the six years she lived there.
