Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE THIRD AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.369along the ground. For he said that no accountat all was to be taken of us, but we were to beboth reputed and treated as non-existent. Thislast was a second torture which they superaddedto their blows. There were those also who aftertheir tortures were put in the stocks with theirfeet distended to the fourth hole, where they mustneeds lie down, not being able to hold themselvesup through their wounds gaping over the wholebody. Others flung on the pavement lay therethrough the repeated violence of their racking,the many signs of suffering over their body presentinga more fearful spectacle to those wholooked on than the racking itself. Thus treated,some died under the torture, putting their adversaryto shame by their endurance; some shut up inprison half-dead, after a few days expired throughthe extremity of their pains; the rest having treatmentapplied became still more resolute throughthe time spent in prison. And so when the choicewas presented to them either to touch the abominablesacrifice, and depart unmolested, gainingby this course an execrable deliverance, or,t sacrificing, to receive sentence of death, without any doubt they joyfully went to deaththey knew what the sacred writingsthat sacrifices to other gods shall be rooted out,d ' thou shalt have no other gods -^^^^^"- but me.' "50This may suffice as a specimen of what wasII.50 Euseb. Hist. viii. 10.