and boldly asserted that they had never before been Christians. Concerning whom the declaration of our Lord is most true, that they will scarcely be saved. Of the rest, some followed the one or the other of the preceding; some fled, others were taken, and of these some held out as far as the prison and bonds, and some after a few days imprisonment abjured (Christianity) before they entered the tribunal. But some, also, after enduring the torture for a time, at last renounced. Others, however, firm and blessed pillars of the Lord, confirmed by the Lord himself, and receiving in themselves strength and power, suited and proportioned to their faith, became admirable witnesses of his kingdom.
The first of these was Julian, a man afflicted with the gout, neither able to walk nor stand, who, with two others that carried him, was arraigned. Of these, the one immediately denied, but the other, named Cronion, surnamed Eunus, and the aged Julian himself, having confessed the Lord, was carried on camels throughout the whole city, a very large one as you know, and in this elevation were scourged, and finally consumed in an immense fire, surrounded by the thronging crowds of spectators. But a soldier, whose name was Besas, standing near them, who had opposed the insolence of the multitude, whilst they were led away to execution, was himself assailed with their loud vociferations, and thus this brave soldier of God, after he had excelled in the great conflict of piety, was beheaded. Another, who was a Lybian by birth, but both in name and blessedness a Macar (blessed), after much solicitation from the judge to have him renounce, still remaining inflexible, was burnt alive. After these, Epimachus and Alexander, who had continued for a long time in prison, enduring innumerable suflering from the scourges and scrapers,[1] were also destroyed in an immense fire.[2] With these there were also
- ↑ The instrument of torture here mentioned was an iron scraper, calculated to wound and tear the flesh as it passed over it.
- ↑ The same expression, (Hebrew text), occurs here as above. We have rendered it, therefore, as above, by the word fire. Valesius, who is followed by Shorting, translates unslacked lime. But why he should understand it differently here from what he does above, does not appear. The martyrs here were destroyed by the same kind of death as the preceding. If the word (Hebrew text) did not determine the sig-
