kewise,
are in a place of rest, by reason of their good works." When the
disciple had departed, the holy man began to talk to one of the mummies
who had been a native of the town of Erment, or Armant, and whose father
and mother had been called Agricolaos and Eustathia. He had been a
worshipper of Poseidon, and had never heard that Christ had come into
the world. "And," said he "woe, woe is me because I was born into the
world. Why did not my mother's womb become my tomb? When, it became
necessary for me to die, the Kosmokrator angels were the first to come
round about me, and they told me of all the sins which I had committed,
and they said unto me, 'Let him that can save thee from the torments
into which thou shalt be cast come hither.' And they had in their hands
iron knives, and pointed goads which were like unto sharp spears, and
they drove them into my sides and gnashed upon me with their teeth. When
a little time afterwards my eyes were opened I saw death hovering about
in the air in its manifold forms, and at that moment angels who were
without pity came and dragged my wretched soul from my body, and having
tied it under the form of a black horse they led me away to Amonti. Woe
be unto every sinner like unto myself who hath been born into the world!
O my master and father, I was then delivered into the hands of a
multitude of tormentors who were without pity and who had each a
different form. Oh, what a number of wild beasts did I see in the way!
Oh, what a number of powers were there that inflicted punishment upon
me! And it came to pass that when I had been cast into the outer
darkness, I saw a great ditch which was more than two hundred cubits
deep, and it was filled with reptiles; each reptile had seven heads, and
the body of each was like unto that of a scorpion. In this place also
lived the Great Worm, the mere sight of which terrified him that looked
thereat. In his mouth he had teeth like unto iron stakes, and one took
me and threw me to this Worm which never ceased to eat; then immediately
all the [other] beasts gathered together near him, and when he had
filled his mouth [with my flesh], all the beasts who were round about me
filled theirs." In answer to the question of the holy man as to whether
he had enjoyed any rest or period without suffering, the mummy replied:
"Yea, O my father, pity is shown unto those who are in torment every
Saturday and every Sunday. As soon as Sunday is over we are cast into