Section 204
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 173 the corpse itself was evidence of his sufferings, as it was one con tinued wound, mangled and shrivelled, that had entirely lost the form of man to the external eye. Christ suffering in him exhi bited wonders ; defeating the adversary, and presenting a kind of model to the rest, that there is nothing terrific where the love of the Father, nothing painful where the glory of Christ prevails. For when the lawless tormentors tortured the martyr again during the day, and supposed that whilst the wounds were swollen and inflamed, if they applied the same torments, they would subdue him, as if he would not then be able to bear even the touch of the hand, or else, that dying under his tortures he would strike a terror into the rest, not only was there no appear ance like this, but, beyond all human expectation, the body raised itself, and stood erect amid the torments afterwards inflicted, and recovered the former shape and habit of the limbs ; so that his second tortures became, through the grace of Christ, not his torment, but his cure. But the devil also led forth a certain Biblias to punishment, who was one of those that had renounced the faith, thinking that he had already swallowed her, was anxious to increase her condemnation by blasphemy, and constraining her as a frail and timid character, easily overpowered, to utter im pieties against us. But in the midst of the torture she repented and recovered herself, and as if awaking out of a deep sleep, was reminded by the punishment before her, of the eternal punish ment in hell. And accordingly she contradicted the blasphemers in her declarations. " How," said she, " could such as these devour children, who considered it unlawful even to taste the blood of irrational animals ?' After that, she professed herself a Christian, and was added to the number of martyrs. But as all the tortures of the tyrants were defeated by Christ, through the patience of the martyrs, the devil devised other machinations ; among these were their confinement in prison, in a dark and most dismal place ; their feet also stretched in the stocks,* and extended to the fifth hole, and other torments, which the enraged minions of wicked* The instrument of punishment here mentioned was a piece of timber, with five pair of holes cut at certain distances apart The feet were put into these and secured with cords and fetters.