The Bloody Theatre, or Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christians: who baptized only upon confession of faith, and who suffered and died for the testimony of Jesus, their savior, from the time of Christ to the year A.D. 1660Braght, Thieleman J. van (Thieleman Janszoon)
History
The Bloody Theatre, or Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christians: who baptized only upon confession of faith, and who suffered and died for the testimony of Jesus, their savior, from the time of Christ to the year A.D. 1660
Braght, Thieleman J. van (Thieleman Janszoon)
Anabaptists -- Europe -- Biography; Christian martyrs -- Biography; Persecution
Lysias commanded them, in order to disgrace her the more, to shave
the hair from her head, put bundles of thorns around her body, and
stretch her out between four stakes, then, to beat her over her whole
body, and put hot coals upon her, that she might be consumed. When
Eulalius, the jailer, and Archelaus, the executioner, had done all
this, death ensued, and they said to Lysias: “Sir, she is dead now.”
Lysias commanded that her dead body should be sewed up in a leathern
bag, and thrown into the water; which was done. Thus did these holy
martyrs suffer, under Lysias, the Proconsul of Cilicia, in Aegæa,
on the 23d of August, in the second year of Diocletian, when he was
Burgomaster with Aristobulus, A. D. 285. These acts have for the most
part been taken from the records of the clerk of the criminal court of
the city of Aegæa, and were gathered by the ancient Christians. These
court documents were called _Acta Proconsularia_. Compare this with _A.
Mell., 1st book, fol. 92, col. 3, 4_, and _fol. 93, col. 1_.
ZENOBIUS AND HIS SISTER ZENOBIA, BEHEADED AFTER MANY TORMENTS, FOR THE
TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST, AT AEGÆA IN CILICIA, A. D. 285.
Not long afterwards, under the same Emperor and Proconsul, and in the
same year, Zenobius, Bishop of the church of Aegæa in Cilicia, and his
sister, were apprehended; and when there were held out to him on the
one hand, great wealth, honor, and position, if, in accordance with
the command of the Emperor, he would serve the gods, but on the other
hand, manifold torments, Zenobius answered: “I love Jesus Christ more
than all the riches and honor of this world. Death and the torments
with which you threaten me, I do not consider a disadvantage, but my
greatest gain.”
Having received this answer from the martyr, Lysias caused him to be
suspended on the rack, and inhumanly tormented on his whole body.
While the executioners were busy with Zenobius, his sister Zenobia,
having learned of it, came running, crying with a loud voice: “Thou
tyrant, what villainy has my brother committed, that thou dost thus
cruelly torment him?”
Having thus addressed Lysias, and set at naught his entreating as
well as his threatening words, she, too, was seized by the servants,
stripped naked, and stretched out, and roasted beside her brother on
a redhot iron bed, or roasting pan. The tyrant, deriding the martyrs,
said: “Now let Christ come and help you, seeing you suffer these
torments for him.”
Zenobius replied: “See, he is already with us, and cools, with his
heavenly dew the flames of fire on our bodies; though thou, surrounded
as thou art with the thick darkness of wickedness, canst not perceive
it on us.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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