There was at that time a priest Anastasius, of free birth, who held some property secured by deeds of queen Clotilda of glorious memory. Usually when he met him the bishop would entreat him to give him the deeds of the queen mentioned above, and place the property under his charge. And when Anastasius postponed complying with the will of his bishop, the latter would try now to coax him with kind words and now to terrify him with threats. When he continued unwilling to the end, he ordered him to be brought to the city and there shamelessly detained, and unless he surrendered the deeds, he was to be loaded with insults and starved to death. But the other made a spirited resistance and never surrendered the deeds, saying it was better for him to waste away with hunger for a time than to leave his children in misery. Then by the bishop’s command he was given over to the guards with instructions to starve him to death if he did not surrender these documents. Now there was in the church of St. Cassius the martyr a very old and remote crypt, in which was a great tomb of Parian marble wherein it seems the body of a certain man of long ago had been placed. In this tomb upon the dead body the living priest was placed and the tomb was covered with the stone with which it had been covered before, and guards were placed at the entrance. But the faithful guards seeing that he was shut in by a stone as it was winter lit a fire and under the influence of hot wine fell asleep. But the priest like a new Jonah prayed insistently to the Lord to pity him from the interior of the tomb as from the belly of hell, and the tomb being large, as we have said, he was able to extend his hands freely wherever he wished although he could not turn his whole body. There came from the bones of the dead, as he used to relate, a killing stench, which made him shudder not only outwardly but in his inward parts as well. While he held his robe tightly against his nose and could hold his breath his feelings were not the worst, but when he thought that he was suffocating and held the robe a little away from his face he drank in the deadly smell not merely through mouth and nose but even, so to speak, through his very ears. Why make too long a story! When he had suffered, as I suppose, like the Divine Nature, he stretched out his right hand to the side of the sarcophagus and found a crowbar which had been left between the cover and the edge of the tomb when the cover sank into place. Moving this by degrees he found that with God’s help the stone could be moved, and when it had been moved so far that the priest could get his head out he made a larger opening with greater ease and so came out bodily. Meanwhile the darkness of night was overspreading the day though it had not spread everywhere as yet. So he hastened to another entrance to the crypt. This was closed with the strongest bars and bolts, but was not so smoothly fitted that a man could not see between the planks.