“Unless you sacrifice,” said he, “with your sons, to the all-powerful gods, I will offer you all up in sacrifice to them.”
The Christian matron replied, “Your gods cannot receive me in sacrifice; but if I am burned for the name of Jesus Christ, my God, I shall render the flames to which your demons are consigned more tormenting.”
The emperor curtly rejoined, “Take your choice: either sacrifice to my gods, or die miserably.”
“Do you think,” said Symphorose meekly, “that fear will cause me to yield? It is my desire to rejoin my husband, whom you have slain for the name of Jesus Christ.”
The emperor ordered her to be taken to the Temple of Hercules. There she was scourged, and then hung by the hair of her head. As she still remained firm, he ordered her to be thrown into the river, with a large stone tied around her neck. The savage deed was immediately performed; and the body of the heroic Christian martyr disappeared beneath the waves. The next day, the emperor caused her seven sons to be brought before him. In vain he exhorted them to sacrifice to the idols. Seeing all his menaces to be unavailing, he erected seven stakes, and bound the brothers to them with cords. He ordered a different death for each one. The first, named Crescent,had his throat cut. The second, Julian, was pierced through the breast with a pike. The third, Nemesius, was struck to the heart with a dagger. Thus they all perished. Their mutilated bodies remained during the day exposed to the jeers of brutal pagans. The next morning the emperor ordered the corpses to be collected and thrown into a ditch. The Christians subsequently gathered up the remains, and buried them about eight miles from Rome. The ruins of a church are still to be seen, which in after-years was erected upon that spot, called the Church of the Seven Brothers.
Such is the narrative which has come down to us from those distant ages. We have no reason to doubt its essential accuracy. Such scenes were continually occurring; and the evidence is incontrovertible, that, in those days of terrible persecution, God did sustain the disciples of Jesus with supernatural support. Tender children and timid maidens encountered death in its most frightful forms with firmness which excited the wonder and admiration of the sturdiest pagans.
The Eastern sage, as he accompanied a monarch through the gorgeous saloons of his palace, said that it had one great defect,—it had no chamber which was death-proof. Adrian found this true in the magnificent pile which he had reared upon the banks of the Tiber. He was taken ill. The disease developed itself in a tormenting dropsy. He had no rest by day, no rest by night. The weary hours were filled with suffering. Remorse was undoubtedly gnawing at his heart. He had known the better way, but had refused to walk in it. Paganism offered him no consolations. Christianity he had rejected. In his anguish he longed to die,—to take that leap in the dark which must be so terrible to any thoughtful man who has not accepted the truth, that life and immortality are brought to light in the gospel. His sufferings were so great, that he begged his friends to kill him,—to present him the poisoned cup, or to plunge the dagger to his heart. But no one was willing to perform that service. He was often heard to exclaim, “How miserable a thing it is to seek death, and not to find it! How strange it is that I, who have put so many others to death, cannot die myself!”
Upon this couch of suffering, from which death removed him in the sixty-second year of his age, he wrote the following lines to his departing spirit, so affecting, so melancholy, that they have survived the lapse of eighteen centuries:—
“Animula, vagula, blandula,
Hospes comesque corporis