“And when I had finished two days,” he said, “and two nights, the demons became so demented that they changed themselves into a crowd of phantasms. Sometimes they took on the appearance of lions scratching my feet with their claws;84 sometimes [246] they took on the appearance of serpents entwining themselves around my feet. Finally, they took on the appearance of fiery flames in order to burn up everything inside the cell, even the mat I was standing on; they burned up everything except for the