Of this fashion of torture witness is to be found in very many Histories of the Holy Martyrs; in the first place in the account of the passion of St. Eulampia, St. Juliana, virgin and martyr, as also of Saints Theonilla, Euphemia, and lastly, St. Symphorosa.
So much we have deemed it well to say concerning the divers modes of suspension employed by the Heathen against Christian men and women. If the reader desire to learn more thereanent, let him consult for himself the various authorities and the Acts of the Blessed Martyrs already cited. Yet before leaving the subject altogether we will quote one other passage, from St. Gregory Nazianzen, wherein he writes, speaking of St. Mark of Arethusa: “From one crowd of lads to the other he was tossed to and fro, swinging as it were suspended, the boys alternately catching that gallant body on their penknives, and in this tragic wise doing the holy man to death, as it had been some sort of game,...” that is to say, the martyr in question was thrown backward and forward between two sets of schoolboys. Many other instances of the same or similar modes of martyrdom might be given, which, however, we be compelled to omit for the sake of brevity.
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