Chapter
VI.—Continuation. Several Other Martyrs.
To these men who spent their lives in the practice of
holiness, there is to be added a great multitude of the elect, who,
having through envy endured many indignities and tortures, furnished us
with a most excellent example. Through envy, those women, the
Danaids
4033
and Dircæ,
being persecuted, after they had suffered terrible and unspeakable
torments, finished the course of their faith with
stedfastness,
4034
and though weak in
body, received a noble reward. Envy has alienated wives from
their husbands, and changed that saying of our father Adam, “This
is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.”
4035
Envy and strife have
overthrown
4036
great cities, and
rooted up mighty nations.
4033
Some suppose these to
have been the names of two eminent female martyrs under Nero; others
regard the clause as an interpolation.
4034
Literally, “have
reached to the stedfast course of faith.”
4035
Gen. ii. 23
.
4036
I.
κατέσκαψεν
(razed to the ground).