CHAPTER VIII

THOSE WHO SUFFERED IN EGYPT

AND such, too, was the severity of the struggle which was endured by the Egyptians, who wrestled gloriously for the faith at Tyre. But one cannot but admire those that suffered also in their native land, where thousands, both men, women, and children, despising the present life for the sake of our Saviour’s doctrine, submitted to death in various shapes. Some, after being tortured with scrapings and the rack, and the most dreadful scourgings, and other innumerable agonies, which one might shudder to hear, were finally committed to the flames; some plunged and drowned in the sea, others voluntarily offering their own heads to the executioners, others dying in the midst of their torments, some wasted away by famine, and others again fixed to the cross. Some, indeed, were executed as malefactors usually were; others more cruelly, were nailed with the head downwards, and kept alive until they were destroyed by starving on the cross itself.