Section 393
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362 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. governor of Palestine, who, for confessing the supreme God and Christ, had the ancles and sinews of their left legs seared off with a red hot iron. Besides this they had their right eyes first cut out, together with the lids and pupils, and then seared with red hot iron, so as to destroy the eye to the very roots. All this was done by the order of Firmilianus, who was sent thither as sue cessor to Urbanus, and acted in obedience to the imperial com mand. After this he committed them to the mines in Palestine, to drag out a miserable existence in constant toil and oppressive labour. Nor was it enough, that those who endured such miseries were deprived of their eyes, but those natives of Palestine, also, whom we have already mentioned as condemned to pugilistic combats, as they neither would suffer themselves to be supported from the imperial treasury, nor undergo the exercises preparatory to the combat, hence they were now brought, not only before the go vernors, but before Maximinus himself, where, displaying the noblest firmness in their confessions^ by enduriug hunger and stripes, they suffered finally the same that the former did, with the addition of other confessors from the same city. Immedi ately after these, others were seized, who had assembled in the city of Gaza to hear the holy Scriptures read, some of whom suffered the same mutilations in their eyes and feet ; others were obliged to endure still greater sufferings, by having their sides furrowed and scraped in the most dreadful manner. Of these, one who was a female in sex, but a man in reason, not enduring the threat of violation, and having used a certain expression against the tyrant, for committing the government to such cruel judges, she was first scourged, then raised on high on the rack, was lacerated and galled in the sides. But as those who were appointed for this incessantly and vehemently applied the tor tures according to the orders of the judge, another woman who, like the former, had contemplated a life of perpetual virginity, though ordinary in bodily form, and common in appearance, yet possessing a mind otherwise firm, and an understanding superior to her sex, was unable to bear the merciless, cruel, and inhuman scene before her, and with a courage exceeding all the far-famed