Section 211
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180 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, punishment of the martyrs. But others, more moderate, and who in some measure appeared to sympathize, frequently upbraided them, saying, " where is their God, and what benefit has their reli gion been to them, which they preferred to their own life?" Such was the variety of disposition among the Gentiles, but among our brethren, matters were in great affliction for want of liberty to commit the bodies to the earth. For neither did the night avail us for this purpose, nor had money any effect to persuade, nor could any prayers or entreaties move them. But they guarded them in every possible way, as if it were a great gain, to prevent them from burial. To these, they afterwards add other ac counts, saying : " The bodies of the martyrs after being abused in every possible manner, and thus exposed to the open air for six days, were at length burned and reduced to ashes by the wretches, and finally cast into the Rhone that flows near at hand, that there might not be a vestige of them remaining on the land. These things they did as if they were able to overcome God, and destroy their resurrection, (TtafayyEveGLaiv^ as they themselves gave out, ' that they might not have any hope of rising again, in the belief of which,~they have introduced a new and strange reli gion, and contemn the most dreadful punishments, and are pre pared to meet death even with joy. Now we shall see, whether they will rise again ; and whether their god is able to help them, and rescue them out of our hands/ " CHAPTER II. Those that had fallen away, kindly restored, by the pious martyrs. SUCH were the occurrences that befel the churches of Christ under the abovementioned emperorprom which it is easy to con jecture what was the probable course of things in the remaining provinces. j[lt may be well here to add to these accounts, other extracts from the same epistle, in which the moderation and be nevolence of these martyrs whom we have mentioned, is record ed in the following words : "They were also so zealous in theii