CHAPTER X

PETRUS ASCETES, ASCLEPIUS THE MARCIONITE, AND OTHER MARTYRS

ON the fourteenth of the following month Apellæus, i. e. the nineteenth of the calends of January, there were some from Egypt seized by the spies appointed to observe those going out of the gates. They had been sent for the purpose of ministering to the necessities of the confessors in Cilicia. These experienced the same lot with those they came to serve, and were mutilated in their eyes and feet. Three of them, however, exhibited a wonderful fortitude at Ascalon, where they were imprisoned, and bore away different prizes of martyrdom. One of them, named Ares, was committed to the flames, the others, Promus and Elias, were beheaded. On the eleventh of the month Audynæus, i. e. on the third of the ides of January, in the same city of Cæsarea, Petrus Ascetes, also called Apselamus, from the village of Anea, on the borders of Eleutheropolis, like the purest gold, with a noble resolution, gave the proof of his faith in the Christ of God. Disregarding both the judge and those around him, that besought him in many ways, only to have compassion on himself, and to spare his youth and blooming years, he preferred his hope in the supreme God to all, and even to life itself.

With him, also, was said to be a certain bishop, named Asclepius, a follower of Marcion’s error, with a zeal for piety, as he supposed, but not according to knowledge. He departed this life on the same funeral pile.