
The Tortures and Torments
of the Christian Martyrs
from
De SS. Martyrum
Cruciatibus
(a Modern Edition)
Chapter X
Of yet other Instruments and Methods of
Torture for Afflicting Christian Martyrs such as:
-
Amputating Womens
Bosoms
-
Cutting out the Tongue
-
Lopping off Hands
and Feet
-
Pulling out the Teeth
-
Flaying Alive
-
Transfixing
-
Exposing to Wild Beasts
In
this chapter we will consider still further methods
of torture under which the Catholic Martyrs suffered, beginning with
the deliberate amputation of women's breasts. This cruelty is found
again and again in the Acts of many female martyrs we find
it, for example, in the Acts of St. Euphemia, of Saints Dorothy,
Thecla, and Erasma, three sisters, of twelve Holy Matrons whose names
are now forgotten, of St. Agatha and others, and lastly of St. Helconis,
whose sufferings are recorded in the Greek Menology on May 28th,
in these words:
"The anniversary of the Blessed Martyr
Helconis. She lived under the Emperor Gordian, and came from the
city Thessalia. Arrested and brought before Perennius, the Governor
of Corinth, she refused to sacrifice to idols, but preaching Christ
and none other, she was first bound by the feet to an ox yoke, and
laid in molten lead and boiling pitch, but escaped unharmed. She
was then shaven and her whole body drenched in fire. Remaining unharmed
once again, she went into the temple of idols, and by her prayers
threw down to the earth the images of Pallas, Jupiter, and Aesculapius.
But when Justinus succeeded Perennius as Proconsul, her bosoms
were cut off, and being brought before the new Governor, she was
cast into a furnace of blazing fire, but the flames did not so
much as touch her, although they burned up and consumed many of
the soldiers. Afterward she was stretched out on a brass
bedstead heated red-hot, but suddenly a company of Angels stood
round her, and saved the holy martyr from all harm. Next she was
exposed to wild beasts, which, while they did her no harm, yet
slew several of their keepers. Finally the Governor pronounced
sentence, which she most gratefully received; and so she was
beheaded and took her departure to heaven.
We now proceed to the other methods of
torture mentioned at the beginning of this chapter those, specifically,
through which the martyrs' teeth were pulled out, or their tongues cut
off, or their hands or feet, or both, amputated, or lastly their legs
broken.
Of Martyrs whose Teeth
were pulled out
This form of torture, which needs, no
further explanation, is found in the Acts of the Holy Saints
and Virgins, Apollonia, Anastasia, and Febronia.
Of Martyrs whose Tongue
was Cut Out
Christians who were subjected to this
kind of punishment are named in the Acts of many Martyrs of either
sex as of Saints Terentianus, Florentius, and Hilary, and Saints Basilissa,
Anastasia, and Agathoclia. The last named is commemorated in the
Menology on October 1st:
"Anniversary of the Blessed Martyr
Agathoclia, a slavewoman. She was the servant of ... a certain [pagan
mistress] Paulina who seeing that Agathoclia was a Christian and
feared God, she was for ever striking her on the head with sharp
stones, and forced her to walk forth barefoot to gather sticks in
winter and frost, and for those entire eight years strove to persuade
Agathoclia to adore idols. But this she utterly refused to do;
so she was scourged, her tongue cut out, and she cast into
prison and there starved. Finally fire was poured down her
throat, and she exchanged this life for a better one.
The other two martyrs, Saints Basilissa
and Anastasia, are commemorated on April 15th as follows:
"Anniversary of Saints Basilissa
and Anastasia. These were natives of Rome, the capital, ladies
distinguished by birth and wealth, and disciples of the Holy
Apostles, and when these latter [the Apostles] were crowned with
martyrdom, they had their holy relics collected and moved by
night. For this they were denounced to the Emperor Nero, and
were accordingly thrown into prison, and presently, when they
remained steadfast in their profession of Christ, were brought
forth again, and hung up, then after breasts, hands, feet, and
tongues had been cut away, were finally beheaded.
Of Martyrs Whose Hands and Feet
were Lopped Off or their Legs Broken
These three methods of torture employed
upon Christians are witnessed to in the Acts of St. Quirinus
and thirty-seven other martyrs, of Saints Severus and Memnon, of St.
Charitina, virgin and martyr, of St. Galatio and his wife, St. Hadrian
and his companions, and of of forty Roman soldiers whose holy martyrdom
is recorded in the Martyrology on March 9th.
Of the Different Ways
in which the Blessed Martyrs Teeth were Pulled Out and their Tongues
and Breasts Cut Way
By the operation of the divine power
and goodness it sometimes came about that the martyrs, after their tongue
was cut out, yet uttered speech and spoke eloquently. This is attested
to in various Acts of the Blessed Martyrs; in those cited above
and in the records of the martyrdom of St. Anastasia. As a rule the
Holy Martyrs had tongues and breasts cut away, and teeth pulled out,
after they had first been bound to stakes set upright in the ground.
We learn this from the Acts of St. Febronia, virgin and martyr,
also mentioned earlier.
How the Blessed Martyrs
had their Feet Cut Off and their Legs Broken
The Christian martyrs' hands and feet
were amputated (as we find in the Acts of St. Febronia, of St.
Oceanus and his companions) in the following way: first, the limb to
be removed was placed on a block of timber or a stand of wood; then
the executioner would lift up his arm holding the axe, and bringing
this down with a crash, would strike away and lop off the part to be
dismembered.
Leg-breaking was effected as follows: an anvil was prepared together
with an iron bar; then the Christians condemned to death for their fidelity
to Christ, were ordered to put their shins upon the anvil, which the
inhuman executioner then smashed with heavy blows of the iron crowbar.
This is all described in the History of the martyrdom of St.
Hadrian, mentioned above.
This punishment, as likewise that of breaking
of the loins, is spoken
of among
ancient writers, such as Plautus in his Poenulus, where he says:
Ex syncrasto scrurifragium fecit
("The wretch was a mere aggregation of mangled humanity before,
and now he had his legs broken into the bargain).
Also by Apuleius in his Golden Ass:
"Then the noble wife, praying to
avert this dreadful doom and thinking with horror of his legs being
broken, hides away her husband, who is shuddering and deathly pale
with terror.
The False Opinion held
by Some Concerning the Punishment of Leg-Breaking
Some
hold that the penalty of leg-breaking was identical with that of breaking
the legs of a criminal after he was nailed to the cross. This, however,
is mistaken, for the practice of breaking the legs of persons
crucified so that they may die the more quickly, was in use only
among the Jews, and was not a practice followed by the Gentiles. The
latter simply left the bodies of crucified criminals hanging on the
cross until they rotted away. This is implied by Plautus, who in his
Miles Gloriosus has a slave say:
Noli minitari; scio crucem futuram
mihi; sepulcrum
("Don't keep on threatening; I know well enough the cross will
be my tomb at last)
And by Horace in his Epistles:
Non hominem occidi; non pasces in cruce corvos
("I have not killed a man; you shall not feed the crows with
my flesh on the cross).
From this it is clear that the Gentiles
did not, like the Jews, remove from the gallows the bodies of those
they had crucified, but rather left them there to rot.
We now move on to discuss the remaining forms of torture first those
wherein sharp-pointed reeds were stuck under the finger-nails, between
these and the flesh of the fingers, or the martyrs flayed alive, or
impaled on a sharpened stake.
These tortures are described in several accounts of the deaths of the
Saints most notably in that of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, as well
as of St. Glyceria, a Roman virgin and martyr, of Saints Gregory the
Armenian, Galatio, Boniface, Benjamin the Deacon, and many others.
Of
Martyrs Pierced with Spits
Moreover
the Blessed Christian Martyrs were not only impaled with a sharpened
stake, as just described, but were sometimes transfixed with iron spits.
This is stated distinctly both in the History of the Martyrdom
of St. Quirinus, and especially by Sozomen, in his Ecclesiastical
History:
"At Gaza the populace, under the Emperor Julian the Apostate, virulently
persecuted Eusebius, Nestabus, and Zeno, who were Christians. They
were arrested when hiding in their houses, thrown into jail and
beaten with scourges. Soon all the people began to gather at the
theatre and cried out angrily against them, declaring that they
had profaned their holy images and had earlier conspired to
destroy and insult the religion of the Heathen. So by dint of shouting
and mutually exciting one another, they were lashed up into passionate
anger and the fierce desire to shed blood.
Thus egging each other on, as is the way of the people when once
roused into turbulence, they rushed to the prison, and hauling
them forth, dragged them along, face down, face up, as it might
happen. Presently dashing them on the ground, and beating them
with sticks and stones and whatever weapons chance put in their
hands, they cruelly put them to death. I have heard, too, that
the women, coming out of the weaving sheds, stabbed them with
their pointed spindles, and the cooks in the market-place
snatched caldrons of boiling water from their fires and dashed
the contents over them, while others pierced them with their
spits. Then when they had mangled their bodies and so broken
their heads that the brains poured out on the ground, they
convey them to a spot outside the city where dead carrion was
wont to be thrown away.
More
than enough has now been said of the impaling of the martyrs with sharpened
stakes, transfixing them with spits, and similar horrors.
We must now address to finish the list of tortures enumerated at the
beginning of Chapter 9 the ways in which the Martyrs were flayed alive,
and then concerning the Catholic sufferers of our own day, under whose
fingernails needles are stuck by their Heretic persecutors.
Martyrs, in full possession of their consciousness and all their senses,
often had the skin of their whole body flayed off, or sometimes that
of some part only: the back, the face, or head to which lighted coals
were then sometimes applied.
Now concerning the torture of Catholic believers by Heretics by means
of needles driven under the finger-nails, the author of the Anglican
Controversy, thus writes of the case of Alexander Briant:
"When Briant had spent two days in the Tower, he was summoned before
them by the Governor of the Fortress and Doctors Hammond and Norton,
who cross-examined him in their customary fashion, proposing an
oath to him to compel him to answer all the charges brought against
him. And when he would not reveal those who supported him, or where
he had performed the Mass, or whose confessions he had heard, they
ordered needles to be stuck under his finger-nails. Despite this
cruelty, he cheerfully repeated the Psalm, Miserere mei, Deus
(Have mercy upon me, O God), and earnestly asked God to pardon his
tormentors.
But
to proceed now to yet other methods of torture, by which, as we have
said already, martyrs were thrown down headlong from high places. That
they were so treated, is amply attested to in many of the Acts
of martyrs, as, for instance, we find in the Acts of St. Clement
of Ancyra and of St. Felicitas and her sons. Tacitus, the Historian,
writes how one Lucius Pithuanius, a magician, was cast down from the
Tarpeian rock, while Apuleius, in the Discourse by which he defends
himself against the charge of sorcery, says:
"A wondrous fabrication, a cunning falsehood deserving of the
jail and the dungeon.
Now
the Dungeon and the Tarpeian Rock were both of them names of the place
[the Capitoline Hill] at Rome from which criminals were hurled down
a steep cliff to their death. Since it is plain that magicians or sorcerers
were thrown down from this cliff, there is little doubt that Christians
also believed to be sorcerers by the Heathen were subjected to the
same form of punishment, and so won for themselves the blessed crown
of martyrdom.
Of
Martyrs Who were Torn in Different Ways or Exposed to Wild Beasts of
Different Kinds
Witness
to this form of torture and execution of Christ's most blessed martyrs
is extensively provided in the Histories of many Saints, as for
instance in those of Saints Philemon and Apollonius, St. Thyrsus and
his companions, St. Mark the Evangelist (Roman Martyrology, on
April 25th), and St. Onesiphorus, a disciple of the Holy Apostles, St.
Martiana, virgin and martyr, and an host of Saints and Martyrs who won
their crown under the Emperor Nero.
The
Manner in which the Martyrs were Dragged Around and Torn
Sometimes
Martyrs were dragged over rough and stony places, or ground sown with
brambles and thistles, tied to the necks or tails of wild horses by
ropes looped and fastened round their ankles. In our own day, Catholics
were pitifully dragged through cities by the Heretics, as we find in
the Theatre of Heretic Cruelties, Sanders' Anglican Schism,
and in the work already cited On the Anglican Persecution. In
the Theatre of Cruelties, for example, you will read how a venerable
Catholic widow, sixty years of age, at the city of Embrun, was, because
of her Faith, bound by the hair of her head to a log of wood, and cruelly
dragged through the streets.
Of
Martyrs Condemned to the Wild Beasts
Furthermore,
it was customary in antiquity to condemn criminals and later,
Christians to the wild beasts. This punishment is mentioned by Asinius
Pollio, Aulus Gellius, Apuleius, Athenreus, and Josephus, as well as
in many other Acts of the B1essed Martyrs. It is also described
in Suetonius' Life of Domitian, where he explains that the martyrs
were exposed, not only to lions, but sometimes to dogs as well, although
lions were more commonly used. We learn of this not only from the story
of Androcles related by Aelian, and the History of the Holy Martyr,
St. Ignatius, as it occurs in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History
and in St. Jerome, but also from the common cry that the Roman population
used to raise against the Christians. Tertullian again and again affirms
how the Roman mob was forever crying,
"The Christians to the lions, the Christians to the lions!" "If
the Tiber," he writes, "overflows the walls, if the Nile does not
overflow the fields, if the sky has stood still, or the earth trembled,
if famine or pestilence has befallen, instantly is the cry raised,
'The Christians to the lions!' " And in another place: "For fear
there be none left to shout, 'The Christians to the wild beasts!'
"
That
Christians were often cast to these kinds of animals as well as to others
to be devoured and torn in pieces is shown in their own Histories,
and not only by Tertullian. This is not surprising, for we find in Roman
law that this punishment was deemed proper for slaves. Since it was
usually inflicted only upon slaves and those esteemed less than slaves,
it would then be considered a suitable punishment for Christ's faithful
servants who were deemed no better than slaves, and worse still among
the Heathen. It is, then, no cause for wonder if they were frequently
found exposed to beasts.
As we have seen in virtually every other form of torture that we have
examined thus far, this being exposed to wild beasts was not always
accomplished in one and the same way. Sometimes the martyrs were stripped
naked and shut up in the midst of theatres or other places where they
were imprisoned; sometimes were they bound to stakes, wrapped in nets,
or clothed in the skins of beasts, and so given to the lions; sometimes
their feet were fixed in hollowed stones by means of molten lead, and
they were enclosed in a confined space and delivered over to be savaged
by dogs. We find the following in the Acts of the Holy Martyr,
St. Benignus:
"Angered by these words, the most wicked Emperor commanded him
to be shut up in prison, and a great stone with a hole through
it to be brought, into which his feet were fixed with molten
lead. Red-hot awls were then stuck lengthwise into his fingers
under the nails, and for six days he was allowed neither food
nor drink. What is more, twelve very savage dogs were imprisoned
along with him, maddened with hunger and thirst, to the end that
they might tear him in pieces and a little further on, "Oh!
wondrous goodness of God, Oh! fatherly love of Jesus Christ for
His own! Behold! An Angel gave him aid, and the dogs grew
gentle, so that they touched not so much as a hair of his head
nor a thread of his clothing ...
Eusebius,
also speaking of Christians exposed to wild beasts, tells us:
"The day for fighting with the beasts having been expressly fixed
for the torture of those of our Faith, Maturus, Sanctus, Blandina,
and Attalus, were led out to the wild beasts, that they might afford
the Heathen a public and open spectacle full of inhumanity and cruelty.
Then Maturus and Sanctus were again exposed to every sort of torture
in the amphitheatre ... and these holy men endured the savage tearing
of beasts, and every other form of torment. ... But Blandina,
bound aloft to a beam of wood, was offered a prey to the beasts
that rushed in. Being so seen suspended as on a cross, and
praying fervently, she instilled great zeal and alacrity in the
minds of her fellow-sufferers; for in their martyred sister,
thus hanging on the cross before them, they seemed in a way to
see Christ Himself, which was crucified for us, with their
bodily eyes. ... However, when not one of the wild beasts would
so much as touch her flesh, she was soon taken down from the
beam, and thrust back again into prison.
Further
down in the same chapter Eusebius continues, writing of the martyr,
St. Alexander, a physician:
"The mob now began to cry out against Alexander. When the Governor
cross-questioned him, asking him who he was, he answered, 'I am
a Christian.' Upon hearing this, the Governor was provoked and condemned
him to the beasts. So the next day Alexander joined the same band
for fighting the beast with Attalus for the Governor, to please
the people, condemned Attalus a second time to this punishment.
And
a little further on again,
"Last of all, Saint Blandina, although a noble and
well-born matron, after encouraging her children to their own
martyrdom and sending them forward victoriously to Christ the
King, now herself ran the same race of torments, going gladly to
rejoin them, and exulting with a great joy in her own death, she
was hastening not as though to be cruelly cast forth to the
beasts, but as one happily invited to the marriage feast of the
bridegroom. So after scourging and mangling by beasts and
roasting in a frying-pan, she was finally rolled in a net and
exposed to be tossed by bulls. After she had been mangled and
thrown about for a long time by these animals, but had no
feeling whatever of the tortures so far applied to her, partly
because of the hope by which she trusted in God's promises, and
partly through the conversations she held between herself and
Christ, she was eventually slain by a sword-cut in the throat.
To quote
Eusebius once more:
"... some won glory in Palestine by their patient endurance of torments,
and others acquired great renown at Tyre in Phoenicia. And who has
not marveled above measure at these men, upon beholding the countless
scourgings they endured, their fighting with wild beasts, and their
endurance against the attacks of leopards, huge bears, savage boars,
and bulls roused to madness by fire and steel, and the wondrous
fortitude of these noble-hearted martyrs against the assault of
each and every beast? ... we were present ourselves, and noted how
the divine power of our Savior, Jesus Christ Himself, to whom they
were giving noble witness in their tortures, gave a very present
help at that time to His martyrs and manifestly showed itself to
them.
"For a long time those ravening beasts did not dare touch the bodies
of the Saints or so much as approach them, even as they were ready
to rush upon the unbelievers, who, standing outside the barriers,
one here and another there, incited and provoked them to attack
the victims. And although the blessed soldiers of God stood there
naked in the midst, and provoked the animals with gestures, trying
to bring them to assail them (for they had been expressly commanded
to do so), yet they were the only ones the creatures would not touch.
Indeed, several times when they rushed out upon them, they were
repelled, as though by some heavenly power or influence, and leapt
back again quicker than they had come. And when this was seen to
happen over and over again, it caused no little wonder among the
heathen who saw it, so much so that when one beast made a vain attack,
they would loose a second, and then a third, at one and the same
martyr.
"At the same time, the spectator
would be lost in wonder and astonishment to see not only the
manly and intrepid temper of these Holy Men, but no less the
firm and inflexible constancy exhibited by those of quite tender
years. For you would behold a mere stripling not twenty years
old yet, constrained by no bonds, standing firm, his arms
extended on each side to form a cross, and with gallant and
lofty determination pouring forth prayers to God, his attention
never wavering, not moving a whit to one side or the other from
the spot where he stood while bears and leopards were
breathing rage and death upon him, and actually trying to tear
his flesh with their teeth. But their mouths, by some divine and
mysterious power, were stopped, I know not how, and the
creatures hastily fled back again of their own accord.
One
last quotation from Eusebius on this subject, who speaks repeatedly
of Christ's faithful servants being exposed to wild beasts;
"Others again you
might see for there were five of them in all offered to the
horns of a huge wild bull. This monster tossed in the air
several of the unbelievers who came near, and mangled them
miserably, leaving them half dead to be dragged away by the
hands of their companions; but to the holy martyrs, although the
bull strove to rush at them, burning with rage and fury, yet it
could not so much as come near them. And although it sprang back
and forth with rushing feet and waving horns, and goaded on with
the application of branding irons, breathed terror and
destruction against them, yet was it held back and forced to
withdraw by some interposition of the divine will, until at
last, seeing it could do them no harm, other beasts were loosed
against them instead. At long last, after many different attacks
and assaults of these animals, the martyrs were slain with a
sword and committed to the waves of the sea by way of burial.
Apart from Christian witnesses, Cornelius
Tacitus, the Roman Historian and writer on morals, is also very clear
that the martyrs, clad in the hides of beasts, were delivered by the
Heathen to be torn by dogs, for he states in the Annals:
"So to stifle this rumor (that he
[Nero] had set Rome on fire himself), he brought to trial and subjected
to the most exquisite torments those whom the common folk, to express
their contempt and hatred of them, called Christians. The originator
of this title was one Christ, who, under the Emperor Tiberius, was
punished by the Procurator Pontius Pilate. The mischievous superstition
was suppressed for the time being, but presently broke out again,
not only throughout Judea, the original seat of the evil, but even
in the Capital itself, to which everything abominable and disgraceful
collects from every quarter, and multiplies.
Accordingly, those
who confessed themselves Christians were first arrested, and at
their denunciation a vast multitude of others; these were proved
guilty not so much of having actually set fire to the city as of
general malevolence to mankind at large. Moreover mockery was
added to the death penalty in their case; clad in the skins of
beasts, they were exposed to be torn to death by dogs, or were
nailed to crosses, or were set up to be burned, and after
daylight failed, used as torches to give light.
See likewise the Roman Martyrology
on June 24th, where an almost identical account is given of these Saints'
deaths, and which speaks generally of many Christians who won the crown
of martyrdom under Nero.
We read, moreover, in Eusebius'
Ecclesiastical History as well as in the Acts of different
Blessed Martyrs and especially in those of Pope Marcellus
how Bishops of the Church, under the Emperor Maxentius, were, for their
greater degradation, assigned to look after beasts of burden. So in
the History of Marcellus, Bishop of Rome, we find:
"He was imprisoned and attacked because
he was for setting the Church in order, and was arrested by Maxentius,
who demanded him to deny that he was a Bishop and to demean himself
by making sacrifice to demons. But consistently despising and deriding
Maxentius' orders, he was condemned to the stable-yard, that is
the stalls or stable of the beasts of burden; in other words to
feed (as Eusebius explains in another passage) the Emperor's horses
and camels, which were used for the public service in carrying loads.
In Theodoretus' Ecclesiastical
History we read of the Persian martyr, St. Hormisdas:
"There was a certain Hormisdas, of
the first nobility among the Persians, sprung of the race of the
Achaemenidae, and whose father had been Governor of a Province.
Learning that this man was a Christian, Goraranes, son of Isdigerdis,
King of the Persians, ordered him to be summoned before him and
to abjure God his Savior. But Hormisdas cried, 'What you command,
O, King, is neither just nor expedient, for whosoever has learned
readily to despise God, Who is the ruler of all men, and to deny
Him, will be so much the more ready to despise his King, since the
latter is but a man and a participator in human weakness.
But the King of Persia, which should
have admired his wise speech, robbed God's noble champion of his
wealth and honors, and ordered him to strip off all his garments
except only a breech-cloth, and lead the camels that were in his
army. After many days had past, the King, looking down from his
raised seat, and seeing that excellent nobleman scorched by the
sun's rays and all covered with dust, called to mind his former
rank and splendor, and ordered Hormisdas to be brought to him, and
a linen shift to be thrown about him. Then, presuming a change of
mind through the hardships he endured, or in light of the kindness
now shown him, he appealed to him, saying, 'Come, now, put away
your obstinacy, and deny the carpenter's son.' But Hormisdas,
fired with divine zeal, tore the shift in two and, tossing it in
the King's face, rebuked him, saying, 'If you think I shall
desert my faith for this thing's sake, take back your gift and
your impious thought with it. ...
A punishment of the same kind is recorded
by Victor, in his work on The Vandal Persecution, in which, speaking
of Armagastus, a most noble martyr of Christ, he tells us:
"Then Theodoric condemned him to
exile in the Province of Byzacium, and there to be employed in
digging of ditches. Afterward, as if to further disgrace and
dishonor him, he ordered him to work as a cow-tender not far
from Carthage, where all men might see him.
Of Christian Martyrs given
to be Nibbled Upon by Mice or to be Trodden Underfoot by Horses
Christians were also given to mice by
Goraranes, the most cruel of the Persian Kings, as Theodoretus relates
in his History:
"Moreover they dig pits, put them
(the Christians) very carefully into them, and poured upon them
a vast number of shrew-mice. Finally, after binding their hands
and feet to hinder them from driving off the little creatures, they
offered them as food to the mice, which under the stress of hunger
gradually ate away the flesh of the imprisoned saints, thus torturing
them horribly day after day. ..."
Similar, but more cruel still, was a
form of torture by which the Heretics of our own time (1591) as described
in the Theatre of Heretic Cruelties tormented recalcitrant
Catholics in an effort to make them abjure their Faith. Laying them
on their backs and binding them securely, they placed on their bare
stomachs inverted basins with live rodents trapped inside them
and proceeded to light a fire over the basins, so that the rodents,
attempting to escape the heat, gnawed through their bellies and buried
themselves in their inwards. Other Catholics of our present time like
the Christians who suffered under Nero have been sewn up in
the hides of beasts and exposed to the bites of mad dogs at the orders
of Elizabeth, Queen of England, because they refused fulfill her wicked
commands that they renounce the true Catholic Faith.
Some of the early Christian martyrs, especially the Bishops, were often
thrown to the ground by the orders of impious persecutors, to be trampled
and mangled by horses. Victor speaks of this in his Vandal Persecution:
"After these cruel edicts so full
of noxious poison, he ordered all the Bishops, who had been assembled
at Carthage, and whose churches, houses and belongings whatsoever
had been plundered, to be driven forth out of the city walls, with
not so much as an animal or a slave, or a single change of clothing
being left them, and further ordered that anyone who offered any
of them hospitality or gave them food, or should even attempt to
do so out of pity, would be burnt up with fire, he and his house
with him.
But the expelled
Bishops act very wisely; for they adopted the state of
mendicants and did not quit the city at all, knowing full well
that if they did withdraw, they would only be recalled again and
forcibly brought back and moreover that their enemies
would lie, as they had lied before, and declare they had run
away because they were afraid to face the persecution, and last
but not least that, if they did so return, they would find no
place of refuge open to them, their Churches, their houses and
their goods having been seized.
"So as they were lying groaning round about the circuit of the
walls and exposed to the weather, it came about that the King
went forth to the baths. They all then crowded eagerly around
him, saying, 'Why are we so afflicted? For what faults
unwittingly committed do we suffer this treatment? If we were
called together to hold a disputation, why have we been
plundered? Why are we driven out, and put off? Why, deprived of
our Churches and our houses, are we made to bear hunger and
nakedness, and left wallowing in the mire?' But looking at them
with lowering eyes, even before he had heard their appeal, he
ordered horses with riders on their backs to be driven over
them, that they would not merely be bruised and hurt by this
violence, but actually killed. And indeed many were trodden to
death, especially the older and weaker among their number.
Imitating these examples, the Heretics
of our own day and in the same way treated a certain friar, John, a
venerable member of the Order of St. Francis, and lately appointed Bishop
of Daventry. After savagely wounding him and punishing and insulting
him in many other ways, they simply had him trod under foot, and left
him lying in the streets like a foul and abject corpse. We read of the
same being done under the Emperor Diocletian to three Blessed Saints
of Christ, Maxima, Secunda and Donatilla, virgins and martyrs.
The remainder of the many tortures enumerated
at the beginning of Chapter IX will be found in the following chapter.
CHAPTER XI
Chapters:
1 -
2 -
3 -
4 -
5 -
6 -
7 -
8 -
9 -
10 -
11 -
12

Totally Faithful to the Sacred
Deposit of Faith entrusted to the Holy See in Rome
Scio
opera tua ... quia modicum habes virtutem, et servasti verbum
Meum, nec non negasti Nomen Meum
I
know your works ... that you have but little power, and
yet you have kept My word, and have not denied My Name.
(Apocalypse
3.8)
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