[167] _Lib. Pontif._, c. iv. These notaries were called by the Greeks ὀξυγράφοι or ταχυγράφοι, that is, short-hand writers. Eusebius says they reported the extemporaneous discourses of Origen. _Hist. Eccles._, vi, 36. [168] Hic fecit sex vel septem subdiaconos, qui septem notariis imminerent ut _gesta martyrum_ fideliter colligerent.--_Lib. Pontif._ [169] The Peristephanon--“Concerning the [martyrs’] crowns.” [170] In the thirteenth century many of the stories were collected in the _Legenda Aurea_ by Jacques de Voragine, an archbishop of Genoa. After the discovery of printing the press teemed with this legendary literature, Flowers of the Saints, Acts of the Martyrs, etc., embellished with numerous engravings, representing with horrible minuteness the Dantean tortures on which the monkish mind loved to expatiate. [171] Assatum est: versa et manduca. [172] --Latus ungula virgineum Pulsat utrimque, et ad ossa secat, Eulalia numerante notas. Scriberis ecce! mihi Domine; Quàm juvat hos apices legere.--_Peristeph._, _Hymn_ ix. [173] See martyrdom of Polycarp, Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, iv. 15. [174] At sola mater hisce lamentis caret, Soli sereno frons renidet gaudio.--Prudent., _Peristeph._ [175] His persecutor saucius Pallet, rubescit, æstuat, Insana torquens lumina. Spumasque frendens egerit.--_Ibid._, _Hymn_ ii. [176] Bitumen et mixtum pice Imo implicabunt Tartaro.--_Ibid._ [177] Hence called legends, a word which has in consequence come to signify the incredible or fictitious. Upon a mere verbal mistake was founded the account by the mediæval writers of a most formidable weapon called the _catomus_, which name gave rise to the verbs _catomare_ and _catomizare_, to express its use. It was at length discovered that _catomus_ was but the Latin form of the Greek adverbial phrase κατ’ ὤμων, signifying, “upon the shoulders.” (Maitland, p. 167.) [178] _Hist. Eccles._, v, 1. [179] Multique avidius tum martyria gloriosis mortibus quærebant quam nunc episcopatus pravis ambitionibus appetunt.--Sulpio. Sever., _Hist._, lib. ii. [180] _Apol._, c. 30. [181] Gregory Nazianzen. _Orat. de Laud. Basil._ See also the striking language of Ignatius. (Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, iii, 36.) [182] Chrys. _Hom._ 74, _de Martyr._ [183] Kip, p. 88--from Maitland, p. 146. Sometimes the ardour for martyrdom rose into a passion, or indeed an epidemic. Eusebius says, (_Hist. Eccles._, viii, 6,) that in Nicomedia “Men and women with a certain divine and inexpressible alacrity rushed into the fire.”