Section 416
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. more distinguished for their skill in the divine word, when taken, received the sentence of death without mercy. Three of these in the city of Emesa in Phoenicia, professing themselves Christians, were thrown to be devoured by the wild beasts. Among these was Silvanus, a very venerable and superannuated bishop, who had been engaged in the ministry forty years. At the same time also, Peter, who presided over the churches of Alexandria with great reputation, an admirable instance of a bishop, both for the excel lence of his life and his study of the sacred Scriptures. He was seized for no reason whatever, and beheaded, beyond all expecta tion so suddenly, and without any cause assigned, as if by the or ders of Maximinus. With him also many other bishop of Egypt suffered the same punishment. Lucianus, a man in all respects most excellent, temperate in his life, and conspicuous for his pro ficiency in sacred literature. He was presbyter of the church at Antioch, and when brought to Nicomedia, where the emperor happened to be staying, he delivered a defence of his doctrine be fore the governor, when he was committed to prison and slain. Such were the preparations made against us in so short a time, by the malicious Maximinus, so that it would appear this persecution now raising against us, was more severe than the former. CHAPTER VIL The measures decreed against us, and engraved on pillars. THE measures and the decrees of the cities against us, and copies of the imperial edicts appended to these, were engraved and erected on brazen tablets, a course never before adopted against us any where. The boys also in the schools had the names of Jesus and Pilate, and the acts forged in derision, in their mouths the whole day. And here appears to me the proper place to insert the epistle of Maximinus, engraven on brass, that at the same time the boasting and haughty arrogance of the man's hatred of God, and also God's just and ever vigilant hatred of 3C