62. Ill-treatment of the Presbyters and Deacons.
What they have done to the Presbyters and Deacons; how they drove them into banishment under sentence passed upon them by the Duke and the magistrates, causing the soldiers to bring out their kinsfolk from the houses [^70], and Gorgonius, the commander of the police 1 to beat them with stripes; and how (most cruel act of all) with much insolence they plundered the loaves 2 of these and of those who were now dead; these things it is impossible for words to describe, for their cruelty surpasses all the powers of language. What terms could one employ which might seem equal to the subject? What circumstances could one mention first, so that those next recorded would not be found more dreadful, and the next more dreadful still? All their attempts and iniquities 3 were full of murder and impiety; and so unscrupulous and artful are they, that they endeavour to deceive by promises of protection, and by bribing with money 4, that so, since they cannot recommend themselves by fair means, they may thereby make some display to impose on the simple.
[^70] : §59.
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στρατηγοῦ , infr. §81, note. ↩
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τοὺς ἄρτους [i.e. their stated allowance: see alsoApol. Ar.18], the word occursEncycl.4,Apol. Fug.6, supr. §§31, 54, in this sense: but Nannius, Hermant, and Tillemont, with some plausibility understand it as a Latin term naturalized, and translate ‘most cruel of all, with much insolence they tore the “limbs” of the dead,’ alleging that merely to take away ‘loaves’ was not so ‘cruel’ as to take away ‘lives,’ which the Arians had done [the parallels refute this, apart from linguistic grounds]. ↩
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ἀσεβήματα ↩
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p. 227, note 8, infr. §73. ↩
