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In this eighth volume I have judged it worthy to leave also to the memory of posterity those things which have been done in our own times; and to relate from this point how greatly and how magnificently throughout the whole world the word of Christ and the doctrine of piety had advanced, and to what height of sublimity it had ascended, surpasses our powers. Yet even from this it is possible to know it: that several of the Roman princes even permitted certain men both the office of governing provinces and of administering justice, and not only allowed them to believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, but even to act in the faith with all confidence and liberty; so that they held those men faithful and close to themselves, concerning whom they were assured that they held nothing treacherous with regard to the faith of Christ.
Such was that most renowned man Dorotheus, held in high esteem, whence too he deserved to be preferred above all in honour and in love. With him were Gorgonius and the rest faithful in the Lord along with them, or those who, within the palace, by the emperor's regard deserved to be preferred above the other faithful. But now, who could worthily explain the multitudes of the peoples gathering within the churches, and especially on feast days the innumerable throngs flocking together in each several place? For not even the ancient buildings sufficed, but daily the houses of prayer were enlarged, so that their spaciousness could not contain them; and the Church, by the more prosperous state of men's minds, was increased, and its glory, exceeding the earth and towering above all things, seemed to hasten toward heaven.
For no envy arose, no malice of the most wicked demon opposed, since indeed the people, still then well-disposed toward God, was upheld by the aid of the heavenly right hand. But when, from much liberty and much indulgence, morals were corrupted and discipline was ruined — while we envy one another and disparage one another, and while we bite and accuse one another and stir up internal wars against our own selves, while with the javelins of words we rouse discords and contests against our neighbours, while dissimulation is in the countenance, guile in the heart, falsehood is uttered in words, and the heap of evils swells up one by one — the divine providence, perceiving the ruin of discipline brought upon its own people out of so great peace and its own too great gentleness, sets about first to restrain it gradually, and for a while permits those only who were in the army to be assailed by the persecution of the heathen. But when no perception of His clemency was rendered back by the peoples, but rather, as if ignorant of God, they judged that affairs were conducted without divine providence, and through this the more persisted in their evils; having become forgetful and being inflamed with contentions, envy, malice, pride, enmities and hatreds against one another, so that they believed themselves to hold rather a tyranny than a priesthood, and, forgetful of Christian humility and sincerity, celebrated the sacred mysteries with profane minds — then at last He cast down the daughters of Zion and cast down from heaven the glory of Israel, nor did He remember His footstool; and again He says, the Lord has submerged all the beauty of Israel and destroyed all its walls; and again, as He says in the Psalms, He has destroyed the covenant of His servant, He has profaned to the ground its sanctification, namely by the overthrow of the churches, and He has destroyed all its walls, He has made its fortifications a terror; all who passed by the way plundered His people; for all which things we have become a reproach to our neighbours.
For He has exalted the right hand of our enemies and turned away the help of His sword, and did not aid us in the battle; but He has even destroyed him from his cleansing and cast his throne down to the ground. He has made our days few, and above all things has poured out confusion upon us. For the sum of all evils was upon us then, when the houses of prayer and the churches of the living God were levelled to the ground and overthrown from their very foundations, and the divine Scriptures were burned with fire in the midst of the streets. O the wickedness! We ourselves saw these things with our own eyes: the priests of the Lord and pastors of the churches publicly stripped, shamelessly and dishonourably dragged hither and thither by the impious, so that that prophetic word was fulfilled which says:
Contempt has been poured out upon princes, and He has led them astray in a trackless place and not in the way. But it is not for us to describe how many kinds of injuries were heaped upon the priests of God, just as we have not deemed it ours to set forth one by one how great a madness of dissension had first blazed up among our own people. This alone has it been permitted to hand over to history: that by the just judgment of God and by a necessary chastisement we felt the divine hand. For it is not fitting to bring into the open on whose account the whirlwind of persecution was brought in, or whom, and how many, the storm of unbelief submerged; but I shall commemorate those things alone which may edify either ourselves who speak or others who hear.
Wherefore now, from this point, we shall unfold briefly, as far as we can, the divine contests of the most blessed martyrs. The nineteenth year of the reign of Diocletian was in course, the month of March, and the solemn day of Pascha was drawing near, when edicts of the prince were set forth throughout all the earth: that all the churches which are anywhere should be levelled to the ground, the sacred Scriptures burned with fire; that if any among our people were fortified with the prerogative of some honour, this being taken away he should remain infamous; and if any of the slaves should have remained a Christian, they were, by the edicts, denied the attaining of liberty. But after no long time others too are added.
It is commanded that all who preside over the churches in each several place should first be cast into chains, and then thereafter be compelled by every torture to sacrifice to the images. Here truly the priests of God were made a great spectacle to this world, and to angels and to men, when by the cruelty of the persecutors they were dragged to torments and, before all, sweated out wondrous contests. But those — who were also far more numerous — whom fear oppressed and whom terror alone dashed down before the encounter, I think it better to pass over. But the rest, whose mind was more ready and faith stronger, endured torments. Some were torn apart with scourges, others gouged with claws, others burned with heated plates. Of whom—!
Some indeed, wearied, gave way, but others preserved their patience unto the end. And some of the persecutors themselves, as if moved by compassion, brought forward certain of our people to the impure sacrifices, and, as though they had sacrificed, cried it aloud, when they had not sacrificed. Of others, when they had not even drawn near to the unclean victims, they themselves proclaimed that they had already offered, and let them go — culpable in this alone, that they suffered in silence the crime laid against them. Others, half-alive, were carried off and reckoned as if they had sacrificed. Some indeed cried out with a mighty voice and testified that they had not sacrificed, but that they were Christians, rejoicing to be adorned with such a confession.
Some also, with greater boldness, testified that they had neither sacrificed nor would ever sacrifice; yet even these were gently pushed away by the bystanders, as though they had complied — so great was the zeal of the impious. But it was not permitted to do these things against the blessed martyrs with impunity; of whose patience and virtue of magnanimity, though no one can worthily [tell]... A small spark had first been kindled among the soldiers alone, when it was decreed that if there were any Christians among the soldiers, they should either know that they must sacrifice, or lay down alike their military service and their life; and very many of them laid down the military service for the faith of Christ, and a few even laid down their lives.
But when from thence the flame, taking its beginning, [spread] throughout the peoples and the priests... how many, almost daily, throughout each several city and province became martyrs! A man illustrious in the honour and dignity of the world, as soon as he saw the cruel edicts posted in the forum against the worshippers of God, kindled with the exceeding heat of faith, publicly tore them apart bit by bit — an Augustus being established in that same city together with the Caesar. When the deed of the religious and illustrious man was reported to them, immediately, raging against him with every kind of cruelty, they could not even accomplish this one thing, that anyone should see him sorrowful amid his punishments; but he rejoiced rather with a joyful countenance.
Whence his torturers were the more grievously tormented, because they exhausted all kinds of tortures upon one whom they could not even make sorrowful. After him the madness of their intent is transferred to one of the companions of Dorotheus, who were in the king's chamber and who had always been held in the affection due to children. For when he more freely protested against the immense torments of the aforesaid martyr, he too is ordered to be led into the midst and is compelled to sacrifice; refusing, he is commanded to be hung up and lacerated over his whole body with scourges — evidently that by the compulsion of pain he might do unwilling what was ordered. But when he remained unmoved, his flesh now stripped bare of its skin, he is ordered to be drenched with vinegar and salt.
And when he had steadfastly and bravely borne even this kind of torment, a gridiron with coals strewn beneath is ordered to be set in the midst, and there whatever remained of his body, wasted by the beatings, to be laid upon it, and to be kindled not all at once, but gradually and little by little, that the punishment might, of course, be prolonged. And when the ministers of crime, turning the body now this way, now that, began the tortures on each single limb and renewed the punishments, hoping that they could wring consent from him, he, firm in faith and exulting in hope, his flesh now consumed and dissolved by the fire, joyfully breathed out his last breath in faith. Adorned with such a martyrdom — Peter, for this is his name — he truly showed himself heir both of the faith and of the name of Peter.
The instructor of this man in discipline, and his master in the offices which were performed within the palace, was Dorotheus, the provost of the royal chamber, having with him... almost all the ministers of the chamber persisted vigilantly and freely in the faith of God. Dorotheus therefore and Gorgonius, when they saw Peter tortured with such cruel and monstrous torments, constantly and freely said: 'Why, O emperor, do you punish in Peter the sentence of the mind which flourishes in all of us? Why is that reckoned a crime in him, which is confessed by us all? This is our faith, this our worship, and one and the same conviction.'
Whom, having nonetheless ordered to come into the midst, after they had been afflicted with almost the same torments as the former ones, he at last ordered to be killed, hung by a noose. Then also Anthimus, the bishop of that same city, persevering in the confession of the Lord Jesus Christ, received the glory of martyrdom by the beheading of his head. And this man, as a truly good shepherd going before on the way of martyrdom, almost the whole multitude of his flock followed. For it happened at Nicomedia in those very days that some part of the palace burned down in a fire. Kindled with immeasurable fury, he orders all our people, gathered together in a heap, some indeed to be beheaded with the sword, others to be burned in the fires. But in them, through divine grace, a greater fire of faith was burning.
In short, when the attendant ministers questioned each one, whether perhaps, being about to sacrifice, they wished to be dismissed, they vied to rush into the flames, or to offer their necks to the striking swords. And when now the very excess of cruelty made even those very spectators shudder, the ministers of crime, having cast a part of the people into little boats, led them out into the midst of the sea, and there, while they persisted in the resolve of the faith, cast them headlong into the deep. And to such a degree did the madness of cruelty blaze up among them, that the royal youths who had been made martyrs, after they had, according to the custom of humanity, been consigned to burial, they dug up again, and threw their bodies into the sea, saying this:
'Lest perchance these too be made gods of the Christians, and those who refuse to adore the gods begin to adore our slaves.' For they suppose that among us divine honour is paid to the martyrs. While these things were being done at Nicomedia, where the bloody and ferocious author himself of the cruelty gaped after the flesh of the pious, no less busily also throughout the province of Melitene and Syria all the leaders of the churches were, by the imperial edicts, pressed to be thrust into prisons and cast into chains; and together with these there were seized, from the common people, men and women, noble and ignoble; and everywhere there came to be a spectacle miserable and foul.
For suddenly there was found in the city a silence, in the prisons a throng; in the city, through the streets, not a single man; in the prisons, no empty place — so that not so much did the accused seem to be led off to the dungeon, as the whole city seemed to have migrated to the prison. The chains which had been forged for murderers, adulterers, poisoners, and violators of tombs, now bind fast the necks of bishops and presbyters and deacons and lectors and of all religious men, so that neither did chains remain over for the criminals, nor was there any place of the dungeon left.
But when it had come to the prince that the prisons were seething and that, through the punishments of the innocent, there was no place left for the criminals, new decrees are again sent forth: that of those who had been shut up, whoever wished to sacrifice should depart free, but whoever refused should perish by various kinds of punishments. Then, how great multitudes of martyrs arose throughout the several provinces, and especially in the regions of Africa and Mauretania, of the Thebaid also and Egypt — it surpasses our power to comprehend by number. Nor indeed are we sufficient, as is worthy, even to record those whose contests at Palestine, or at Tyre, which is the greatest city of Phoenicia, we inspected as present eyewitnesses.
For with such great virtue of perseverance did they contend against the tortures inflicted for the sake of piety, that, unless a man first believe our Lord and Saviour, who says, 'Behold, I am with you all the days, even unto the consummation of the age,' and know His power to be present to the martyrs, he would withhold his faith from the deeds done. But we, as I have said, narrate not things heard, but things inspected with our own eyes. Diverse kinds of torments, succeeding one another in turn, were sought out. First with scourges the martyrs of God were plucked over the whole body. After these they were handed over to beasts; lions, bears, leopards and every kind of wild beast were brought forth, boars too, and even bulls, to whose ferocity iron and fire were added.
All these things were prepared against the worshippers of God, and every cruelty of men, of beasts, and of the elements was armed against them. To this end the worshippers of God, stripped, are set in the middle of the arena; fury is moreover added by art to the beasts within their cages, and thus, made more savage than their own nature, they rush forth from the barriers, suddenly fill the stadium, surround the church of the martyrs set in the midst, go round about again and again and reconnoitre; and, perceiving the guard of divine power to be present with them, they withdraw far from their bodies. But at once the fury which was being restrained in the beasts passes over into men.
No one perceives the present power of God, no one perceives the divine aid present with the pious; but those whose art this is are sent to goad the beasts against those whom the divine right hand was defending. Yet those beasts — that it might be shown to all that ferocity was not lacking to the beasts, but that the divine guard was present with the worshippers of God — with incredible speed tear apart the very men who are sent to goad them. And when now no one of such handlers dared to approach, the holy martyrs themselves are ordered, with moving hands and as if provoking, to incite the beasts against themselves. But not even thus could they suffer any harm; but even if perhaps any beast had been stirred up, when it had come near to them, at once, turned back upon itself, it retreated.
[Astonishment] had seized them, seeing naked men — among whom very many were still of the earliest age — set in the midst of so many and so great beasts, all intrepid and undaunted, with palms stretched out to heaven and with eyes and mind wholly with God, not only caring nothing for earthly things, but not even greatly regarding their own flesh, to stand fast in the midst of the beasts. But O hard and impious minds of mortals! The ferocity of the beasts grows tame by the power of God, yet human madness neither is softened by the examples of the beasts, but God is still tempted by men. Others, truly criminal, are ordered to be exposed to the beasts; who nonetheless, as soon as they appeared, one was seized... and thus all perish within a moment of time.
But not even thus did the goaded beasts cause any harm to the worshippers of God, the divine Spirit encompassing them as with the strongest walls. For truthful is He who had said: 'Where there are of you two or three, there will I be in the midst of them.' Since therefore not even thus had human savagery accomplished anything, the beasts are ordered to be changed, and, the former ones being taken away, others again are let loose. When these too, like the former, had brought nothing grievous upon the worshippers of God, these also being removed, they send against the martyrs men more savage than the beasts, who — that they might show themselves worse than the beasts — even forbade the corpses to be committed to the earth, but ordered them to be given to the waves.
These things [happened] at Tyre to the venerable martyrs who had come to that city from the parts of Egypt. But in their own province, at Egypt, innumerable others of no inferior glory — both men and women, and also boys and old men — for the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, esteeming lightly the present life, sought the blessedness of future glory.
Some of them, after blows, after claws, after scourges and other horrible torments of diverse kinds, were handed over to the flames; others were cast headlong into the sea; some too were beheaded, so that they gave their necks to the axes of their own accord; some were consumed by starvation; others were fixed to gibbets, on which certain ones, in a perverse manner, with the head pressed downward, [were left to die]. But at the Thebaid the cruelty practised surpasses all narration. In place of claws the torturers employed the potsherds of earthen vessels, with which they lacerated the whole body up to this point: until they drew off the whole skin of the flesh.
Women too, naked, so that not even their private parts were covered, suspended by one foot on high by machines contrived with a certain art, and with the head plunged toward the ground, exposed to a most shameful spectacle, they suffered to hang for a whole continuous day. Others: wherever two trees near one another were found, by a certain force bending the branches of each against one another, and binding to each single branch one single foot of the martyr, suddenly they released the branches which they had bent by force. And these, when they were carried back to their position by their natural momentum, tore off and carried away with them the limbs plucked away, the inward parts being rent asunder and cast in contempt.
And this was done not for a few days, or for a short time, but throughout several years, daily — when at the very least little children were slaughtered by the aforesaid kinds of punishments. We ourselves too, during that same time, when we were journeying in the parts of Egypt, inspected with our own eyes how innumerable peoples of the faithful were brought before the most savage governor as he sat for the tribunals; whom he, each one in order having confessed himself a Christian, ordered to be beheaded. And when these of their own accord and in rivalry submitted themselves to the sword, the confession having gone before, that inhuman and cruel man, moved neither by the sight of the multitude nor by the magnanimity of their virtue, nonetheless ordered them all to be led away and beheaded.
They all go out together to the field adjoining the walls, drawn not by the fetters of executioners, but bound by the chains of faith. No one was lacking, though no one guarded them; of their own accord all — nay, even anticipating one another — offered their necks to those who struck. The hands of the executioners failed, and, succeeding one another, they grew weary; the edge of the sword was blunted. I saw the wearied executioners sit down, regain their strength, restore their spirits, change their swords, and the very day itself not suffice for the punishment. Yet no one of them all, not even a tiny infant, could be frightened away from death; but this alone each one dreaded: lest perhaps, while the hastening sun, sinking, closed the day, he should be left, separated from the fellowship of the martyrs.
Thus, with the confidence of faith, constantly and bravely, with gladness and exultation, they seized upon present death as the beginnings of eternal life. Indeed, when the foremost were being slaughtered, the rest did not indulge their spirits in sloth or torpor, but singing psalms and chanting hymns to God, each awaited the place of his martyrdom, so that, while doing these things, they might breathe out even their last breaths in the praises of God. O truly wonderful flock, worthy of all veneration, that flock of the blessed, that band of brave men, that crown of the splendour of the glory of Christ! This crown, indeed, a stone more precious than all and a nobler gem adorned; this band a more illustrious leader went before; this flock a nobler shepherd graced.
Phileas is the name of this man, who was bishop of that very city which is called Thmuis. He drew the nobility of his first origin, according to the virtue of the soul, from things heavenly; but of things earthly, as far as pertains to the world, he was among the first in the Roman commonwealth. Being most excellently trained in all the exercises which pertain to the virtue of the soul, he so took up this newest philosophy — which is the first of all — the philosophy according to God, that he went before all who had preceded him.
And although he had very many kinsmen and blood-relations, noble men, in the same city, he was frequently brought before the governor; and, so many and such great kinsmen entreating him, he was urged to acquiesce to the governor's admonitions, to have regard for his wife and to take up consideration for his children, and not to persist in the presumption he had begun. But he, just as if a wave were dashed against an immovable rock, spurned the sayings of the babblers, stretched his mind toward heaven, kept God before his eyes, and reckoned as his parents and kinsmen the holy martyrs and apostles. There was present then a certain man commanding a troop of Roman soldiers, Philoromus by name.
When he saw Phileas surrounded by the tears of his kinsmen and wearied by the cunning of the governor, yet in no way able to be bent or broken, he exclaimed: 'Why do you tempt the constancy of the man in vain and to no purpose? Why do you wish to make unfaithful him who keeps faith with God? Why do you compel him to deny God, that he may comply with men? Do you not see that his ears do not hear your words? that his eyes do not see your tears? How can he be bent by earthly tears, whose eyes behold the heavenly glory?' After these words, the anger of all, turned upon Philoromus, demands that he undergo one and the same sentence with Phileas. Willingly assenting to them, the judge orders both to be beheaded.
But since we have made mention of Phileas and have extolled the zeal of his genius and erudition, it does not seem out of place if we insert into this history, from among his little works — in which he records concerning the sufferings of the martyrs — some things which evidently pertain to the matter. Writing therefore to the people of Thmuis, this same Phileas, after some other things, reports these: 'The blessed martyrs furnished us examples of these good things, who, enduring in the contests together with us, according to what they had been taught from the divine Scriptures, holding the eye of their mind fixed on God, took death for the sake of piety without trembling.'
'For Scripture has taught us unceasingly that this must be done: that we should struggle against sin even unto death; since He Himself did not deem it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself... Following Him, all the blessed martyrs took up all tortures and punishments, lest they should stain the conscience of their faith, since indeed perfect charity in them was casting out fear. And of these, if I should now wish to enumerate the virtues of their endurance and to set forth the strength of their constancy, there is not for me so great an abundance of speech... [nor would such things] seem credible.'
'For they were exposed to all who wished, at their own pleasure, to inflict tortures; and if anyone, devising at leisure some new kind of torment, brought it forward, it was permitted to inflict it. Some therefore were beaten with cudgels, others with rods, others too with scourges; some, stretched out with thongs or ropes, were bound fast. Others, with their hands bound behind their back, were hung up and, distended by pulleys, were torn apart limb by limb. And now to be furrowed with claws was reckoned old and slight. And if perhaps that kind of torment had been applied to anyone... but both the belly and the thighs and the shins, and even to the toes the claw reached. Nor indeed did even the face and countenance and forehead remain immune from the torments.'
'And above all this was added: that, after the human bodies had been stripped not only of clothing but even of skin, they became a cruel spectacle to all who passed by. Some, stretched out on columns and bound behind their back with their arms wrenched round, they left thus. And now those who were suspended before the governor suffered not only during that time in which they were either being examined or tortured by him... if perhaps any of these, by the continuation of the unremitting punishment, should fall away from the firmness of his purpose.'
'But so great was the cruelty in these things, and to such a degree had every feeling of humanity utterly fled from them, that, after the whole body had been consumed either by torments or by beatings, they were dragged naked by the feet again... and their backs, still raw with wounds, were thrown down again onto the ground strewn beneath with fragments of potsherds. Meanwhile very many, constantly and bravely enduring even unto death, brought no small shame of vainly-attempted cruelty upon the inventors of crimes. But others, having recovered the health of their bodies, of their own accord provoked the dispensers of punishments to renew the contests; whom those men, blushing, feared to recall again to the torments, and, terrified by their very audacity, ordered them to be beheaded.'
These are the words of the truly-in-God philosopher, the blessed martyr Phileas, by which he would make those men, together with himself, companions and partners of the martyrs. But what should we say of those elsewhere? For herein both the common rights of humanity and the proper laws of the Roman realm [were trampled], when the whole people, and honoured men, and the curator and the magistrate, confessed themselves to be Christians and refused to acquiesce to sacrificing; whereupon they order them to be surrounded by soldiers, and all together — men with their women, old men with little children, the whole citizenry with its citizens — to be consumed by fire cast upon them; so that there was utterly perpetrated a thing which, had it been done against enemies, would have borne the mark of cruelty.