d each
other, if possible, to die together; and they begged it of God, as a
favor, that they might both suffer the same torments. The persecutors
hung them in the air with great weights at their feet. One of them,
under the excess of pain, begged to be taken down for a little ease. His
brother, fearing this desire of ease might by degrees move him to deny
his faith, cried out from the rack on which he was hanging: "God forbid,
dear brother, that you should ask such a thing. Is this what we promised
to Jesus Christ? Should not I accuse you at his terrible tribunal? Have
you forgotten what we have sworn upon his body and blood, to suffer
death together for his holy name?" By these words the other was so
wonderfully encouraged that he cried out: "No, no; I ask not to be
released: on the contrary, add new weights, if you please, increase my
tortures, exert all your cruelties till they are exhausted upon me."
They were then burnt with red-hot plates of iron, and tormented so long,
and by so many new engines of torture, that the executioners at last
left them, saying: "Everybody follows their example, no one now embraces
our religion." This they said, chiefly because, notwithstanding they had
been so long and so grievously tormented, there were no scars or bruises
to be seen upon them. Two merchants of Carthage, who both bore the name
of Frumentius, suffered martyrdom about the same time, and are joined
with St. Victorian in the martyrologies. Among many glorious confessors
at that time, one Liberatus, an eminent physician, was sent into
banishment with his wife. He only grieved to see his infant children
torn from him. His wife checked his tears by these generous words:
"Think no more of them, Jesus Christ himself will have care of them, and
protect their souls." While in prison, she was told by the heretics that
her husband had conformed: accordingly, when she met him at the bar
before the judge she upbraided him in open court for having basely
abandoned God: but discovered by his answer that a cheat had been put
upon her, to deceive her into her ruin. Twelve young children, when
dragged away by the persecutors, held their companions by the knees till
they were torn away by violence. They were most cruelly beaten and
scourged every day for a long time; yet by God's grace every one of them
persevered to the end of the persecution firm in the faith. See St.
Victor, De Persec. Vandal. l. 5, n. 4.

ST. EDELWALD,[1] PRIEST, C.