{"author":"Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)","date_end":1892,"date_label":"1892 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain)","date_start":1892,"edition_year":1892,"edition_year_basis":"Original NPNF Series II Volume III title and contemporary Jackson bibliography, 1892; physical transcription printing unknown; scan/transcription preface dates differ","id":"ws-library-full-note:93159d526a7750cde107:cite_note-21","is_genuine_commentary_verified":false,"license_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Reusing_Wikisource_content","public_import_allowed":true,"publication_location":"source-library","record_type":"editorial-footnote","references":[],"rights_approved":true,"section":"Chapter XIX.—Narrative of events at Alexandria in the time of Lucius the Arian, taken from a letter of Petrus, Bishop of Alexandria.; original source section: Chapter 19, editorial note cite_note-21","semantic_kind_reviewed":false,"source_context":["Most of them were monks, devoted to a life of ascetic solitude, and were about twenty-three in number. Not long afterwards the deacon who had been sent by our beloved Damasus, bishop of Rome, to bring us letters of consolation and communion, was led publicly through the town by executioners, with his hands tied behind his back like some notorious criminal. After sharing the tortures inflicted on murderers, he was terribly scourged with stones and bits of lead about his very neck. He went on board ship to sail, like the rest, with the mark of the sacred cross upon his brow; with none to aid and none to tempt him he was despatched to the copper mines of Phennesus. During the tortures inflicted by the magistrate on the tender bodies of little boys, some have been left lying on the spot deprived of holy rites of burial, though parents and brothers and kinsfolk, and indeed the whole city, begged that this one consolation might be given them. But alas for the inhumanity of the judge, if indeed he can be called judge who only condemns! They who had contended nobly for the true religion were assigned a worse fate than a murderer’s, their bodies lying, as they did, unburied. The glorious champions were thrown to be devoured by beasts and birds of prey. Those who were anxious for conscience’ sake to express sympathy with the parents were punished by decapitation, as though they had broken some law. What Roman law, nay what foreign sentiment, ever inflicted punishment for the expression of sympathy with parents? What instance is there of the perpetration of so illegal a deed by any one of the ancients? The male children of the Hebrews were indeed once ordered to be slain by Pharaoh, but his edict was suggested by envy and by fear. How far greater the inhumanity of our day than of his. How preferable, if there be a choice in unrighteousness, their wrongs to ours. How much better; if what is illegal can be called good or bad, though in truth iniquity is always iniquity."],"source_library_url":"/library/93159d526a7750cde107/#ws-library-full-note:93159d526a7750cde107:cite_note-21","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_II/Volume_III/Theodoret/Ecclesiastical_History/Book_IV/Chapter_19#cite_note-21","translator":"Blomfield Jackson","verification":{"proof_file":"raw/review/source-library-note-batch-0058/proof-records.jsonl","proof_file_sha256":"d99bcd456b74c226cd5595a9908fd04c9b4bb20b3ada750b4109d294d60ae7ee","proof_record_id":"ws-library-full-note:93159d526a7750cde107:cite_note-21"},"verified":true,"work":"Ecclesiastical History","work_id":"ws-npnf2-3-jackson-021af23397a9405a3966"}