Section 323
The text on this page is estimated to be only 28.50% accurate
292 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. pronounce firm and vigorous in years. But those of forty years and up to seventy, were so much the more numerous then, that their number cannot now be made up, if even those from fourteen to eighty were inserted and enrolled among the receivers of the public grain. And those who in appearance are but the youngest, are now as of an age with those formerly the oldest. And yet, though they constantly see the human race diminishing, and con stantly wasting away, in the very midst of this increasing de struction, and this annihilation, they are not alarmed." CHAPTER XXII. The pestilence which then prevailed. THE pestilence, after these things, succeeding the war, and the festival being at hand, he again addresses the brethren in epistles ; in which he shows the great calamities attending this affliction, as follows : " To other men, indeed, the present would not ap pear a fit season for a festival, and neither is this, nor any other time a festival for them, not to speak of sorrowful times, but not even that which a cheerful person might especially deem such. But now all things are filled with tears, all are mourning, and by reason of the multitudes already dead, and still dying, groans are daily resounding throughout the city. For as it is written re specting the first born of Egypt, thus now, also, a great lament ation has arisen, for there is not a house in which there is not one dead. And I wish, indeed, this were all. Many, indeed, and horrible calamities have preceded this. First, indeed, they drive us away, and solitary and in exile, and persecuted and put to death by all, we still celebrated the festival ; and every place, marked by some particular affliction, was still a spot distinguished by our solemnities ; the open field, the desert, the ship, the inn, the prison. But the most joyous festival of all was celebrated by those perfect martyrs who are now feasting in the heavens. " After this, war and famine succeeded, which indeed we en