1. such noble acts of the distinguished martyrs of
Christ, the flame of persecution lessened, and was quenched, as it were
by their sacred blood, and relief and liberty were granted to those
who, for Christ’s sake, were laboring in the mines of Thebais, and for a little time we were beginning to breath pure air.
2. But by some new impulse, I
know not what, he who held the power to persecute was again aroused
against the Christians. Immediately letters from Maximinus against us
were published everywhere in every province. The governors and the military prefect urged by edicts and letters and public ordinances the magistrates and generals and notaries in all the cities to carry out the imperial decree, which ordered that the altars of the idols should with all speed be rebuilt; and that all men, women, and children, even infants at the breast, should sacrifice and offer oblations; and that with diligence and care they should cause them to taste of the execrable offerings; and that the things for sale in the market should be polluted with libations from the sacrifices; and that guards should be stationed before the baths in order to defile with the abominable sacrifices those who went to wash in them.
3. When these orders were being
carried out, our people, as was natural, were at the beginning greatly
distressed in mind; and even the unbelieving heathen blamed the
severity and the exceeding absurdity of what was done. For these things
appeared to them extreme and burdensome.
4. As the heaviest storm
impended over all in every quarter, the divine power of our Saviour
again infused such boldness into his athletes, that without being drawn on or dragged forward by any one, they spurned the threats. Three of the faithful joining together, rushed on the governor as he was sacrificing to the idols, and cried out to him to cease from his delusion, there being no other God than the Maker and Creator of the universe. When he asked who they were, they confessed boldly that they were Christians.
5. Thereupon Firmilianus, being
greatly enraged, sentenced them to capital punishment without
inflicting tortures upon them. The name of the eldest of these was
Antoninus; of the next, Zebinas, who was a native of Eleutheropolis; and of the third, Germanus. This took place on the thirteenth of the month Dius, the Ides of November.
6. There was associated with
them on the same day Ennathas, a woman from Scythopolis, who was
adorned with the chaplet of virginity. She did not indeed do as they
had done, but was dragged by force and brought before the
judge.
7. She endured scourgings and
cruel insults, which Maxys, a tribune of a neighboring district, without the knowledge of the superior authority, dared to inflict upon her. He was a man worse than his name, sanguinary in other respects, exceedingly harsh, and altogether cruel, and censured by all who knew him. This man stripped the blessed woman of all her clothing, so that she was covered only from her loins to her feet and the rest of her body was bare. And he led her through the entire city of Cæsarea, and regarded it as a great thing to beat her with thongs while she was dragged through all the market-places.
8. After such treatment she
manifested the noblest constancy at the judgment seat of the governor
himself; and the judge condemned her to be burned alive. He also
carried his rage against the pious to a most inhuman length and
transgressed the laws of nature, not being ashamed even to deny burial
to the lifeless bodies of the sacred men.
9. Thus he ordered the dead to
be exposed in the open air as food for wild beasts and to be watched
carefully by night and day. For many days a large number of men
attended to this savage and barbarous decree. And they looked out from
their post of observation, as if it were a matter worthy of care, to
see that the dead bodies should not be stolen. And wild beasts and dogs
and birds of prey scattered the human limbs here and there, and the
whole city was strewed with the entrails and bones of men,
10. so that nothing had ever
appeared more dreadful and horrible, even to those who formerly hated
us; though they bewailed not so much the calamity of those against whom
these things were done, as the outrage against themselves and the
common nature of man.