Section 210
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 179 striving to force them to swear, but were unable to effect it. Ponticus, indeed, encouraged by his sister, so that the heathen could see that she was encouraging and confirming him, nobly bore the whole of these sufferings, and gave up his life. But the blessed Blandina, last of all, as a noble mother that had animated her children, and sent them as victors to the great King, herself retracing the ground of all the conflicts her children had endured, hastened at last, with joy and exultation at the issue, to them, as if she were invited to a marriage feast, and not to be cast to wild beasts. And thus, after scourging, after exposure to the beasts, after roasting, she was finally thrown into a net and cast before a bull, and when she had been well tossed by the animal, and had now no longer any sense of what was done to her by reason of her firm hope, confidence, faith, and her communion with Christ, she too was despatched. Even the Gentiles confess ed, that no woman among them had ever endured sufferings as many and great as these. But not even then was their madness and cruelty to the saints satisfied ; for these fierce and barbarous tribes, stimulated by the savage beast Satan, were in a fury not easily to be assuaged, so that their abuse of the bodies assumed another novel and singular aspect. Not abashed when overcome by the martyrs, but evidently destitute of all reason, the madness both of the governor and the people, as of some savage beast, blazed forth so much the more, to exhibit the same unjust hostility against us. That the Scriptures might be fulfilled, " He that is unjust let him be unjust still, and he that is righteous let him be righteous still." Rev. xxii. 11. For those that were suffo cating in the prison, they cast to the dogs, carefully watching them night and day, lest any should be buried by us, and then also cast away the remains left by the beasts and the fire, how soever they had either been mangled or bun it. They also guarded the heads of the others, together with the trunks of their bodies, with military watches, for many days in succession, in order to prevent them from being buried. Some, indeed, raged and gnashed their teeth against them, anxious to find out soma better way of punishment. Others, again, laughed at and insulted them, extolling their idols, and imputing to them the 18