What need is there now for me to mention the rest by name, or to number the multitude of the men, or to portray the manifold maltreatments of the marvellous martyrs of Christ—at one time slain with axes, as befell those in Arabia; at another with their legs broken, as happened to those in Cappadocia; and at one time hung up head-downward by the feet on high, and, with a slow fire kindled beneath, suffocated by the smoke given off from the burning fuel, as was inflicted on those in Mesopotamia; at another time having their noses and ears and hands mutilated, and the remaining members and parts of the body butchered, as were the things in Alexandria?
What need to rekindle the memory of those at Antioch, roasted over gridirons of fire, not unto death, but unto prolonged torment; and of others who sooner thrust their right hand into the fire than touched the accursed sacrifice? Some of these, fleeing the ordeal, before they could be caught and come into the hands of those who plotted against them, hurled themselves down from on high, from lofty roofs, accounting death a prize snatched from the wickedness of the impious.
And a certain holy and admirable one in the virtue of soul, though in body a woman, and renowned among all besides the rest of those at Antioch for wealth and birth and good repute, who had reared in the ordinances of godliness a pair of daughters, virgins distinguished for the bloom and prime of body—since the great envy stirred up about them, searching out by every means, was busy seeking them where they lay hidden, and then, learning that they were spending time in a foreign land, with much pains summoned them to Antioch, and they were now caught within the soldiers' nets—she, seeing both herself and her daughters in straits, and setting before them in speech the dreadful things to come from men, and the most unbearable of all dreadful things, the threat of fornication, charging both herself and her maidens that they ought not to endure to hear of it even with the tips of their ears, and saying that to betray their souls to the bondage of the demons was worse than all deaths and every destruction—proposed that there was one deliverance from all these things, namely, refuge in the Lord.
And then, having agreed together in mind, and decently arranging their bodies with their garments, when they had come to the very middle of the road, they begged the guards to withdraw a little, and cast themselves into a river flowing by.
These, then, made an end of themselves. But another pair of virgins at Antioch itself, in all things godly and truly sisters, illustrious in birth, splendid in life, young in years, fair in body, holy in soul, godly in manner, marvellous in diligence—since the earth, as it were, could not bear to carry such as these—the servants of the demons commanded to be cast into the sea. So much, then, concerning these.
But things dreadful to the ears others suffered in Pontus: their fingers pierced through from the very tips of the nails with sharp reeds in both hands; and others, with lead melted by fire, having the boiling and red-hot mass poured over their backs, and roasted in the most vital parts of the body.
And others endured, through the unspeakable members and inward parts, shameful and merciless sufferings not even to be told in word, which the noble and lawful judges, displaying their own cleverness, devised more ambitiously as though it were some prowess of wisdom, ever vying with one another to outdo one another in the newer maltreatments which they invented, as if for the prizes of a contest.
But the end of these calamities was when at length, being exhausted by the excess of evils, and grown weary of killing, and having taken their fill and surfeit of the shedding of blood, they turned to what was reckoned by them kindness and humanity, so that they seemed no longer to devise any dreadful thing against us.
For they said it was not fitting to defile the cities with kindred blood, nor to bring into disrepute, for the utmost cruelty, the government of the rulers, which was gracious and gentle toward all; but that rather the beneficence of the humane and imperial authority ought to be extended to all, men being no longer punished with death; for this penalty against us had been remitted, on account of the humanity of the rulers.
Thereupon it was ordered that the eyes should be gouged out and one of the two legs maimed. For these were to them the humane measures, and the lightest of the punishments against us; so that now, on account of this humanity of the impious, it is no longer possible to tell the multitude, beyond all account, of those who had their right eyes first cut out with a sword and, after the gouging, these cauterized with fire; and their left feet again rendered useless at the ankle-joints by cauteries; and after these things were condemned to the provincial copper mines, not so much for service as for ill-treatment and misery; and besides all these things, fell into divers conflicts which it is not even possible to recount, for their deeds of valour surpass all account.
In these things, then, having shone forth throughout the whole world, the magnificent martyrs of Christ rightly amazed the beholders of their courage everywhere, and through themselves set forth manifest proofs of the truly divine and ineffable power of our Saviour. To make mention of each by name would indeed be a long task, nay rather, one of things impossible.