Section 405
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374 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. he inflicted, by scourging and lacerating their sides, then con demned them to be devoured by the beasts. After the lapse of two days, on the fifth of the month Dystrus, the third of the nones of March, the day that was considered the birthday of the tu telary divinity of Cesarea,* he was cast before a lion, and after wards slain with the sword. As to Eubulus, after another day and a half, on the very nones of March, which would be the seventh of Dystrus, when the judge had urged him much to enjoy that which was considered liberty among them, by offering the sacrifice, he preferred a glorious death in the cause of religion, and after being cast to the beasts like the former, was the last to close the list of the martyrs that wrestled for the faith at Cesarea. It is also worth while here to state, how at length the providence of God overtook the wicked governors themselves, together with the tyrants. For the same Firmilianus that raged with such violence against the martyrs of Christ, after receiving with the others the most signal punishment inflicted on him, at length ended his life by the sword. And such, then, were the martyrdoms endured at Cesarea, during the whole period of the persecution. CHAPTER XII. The prelates of the church. BUT the events that occurred in the intermediate time, besides those already related, I have thought proper to pass by ; I mean particularly the circumstances of the different heads of the churches, who from being shepherds of the reasonable flocks of Christ that did not govern in a lawful and becoming manner, were condemned, by divine justice, as unworthy of such a charge, to be the keepers of the unreasonable camel, an animal deformed in the very structure of its body, and condemned further to be * Every city was supposed by the heathen to have its tutelary divinity, who pre sided over its destinies, and hence called TU^, fortune, by our author. The tem ples dedicated to these were hence called Tychea.