The Lives of the Saints Volume 1 - St. Patrick's Basilica

they studied once in good earnest to curb sensuality and to renounce
their own lights, their own will, and the inordinate love of themselves,
difficulties would disappear before them, and they would in a short time
arrive at the perfection of true virtue, and enjoy the liberty of the
children of God, and his interior peace, the true road to which is only
humility, meekness, and perfect self-denial. Did we know the treasure
and happiness which this would procure us, we should, in imitation of
the ancient holy monks, desire to meet with superiors who would exercise
us by the severest trials, and think ourselves most obliged to those who
apply the strongest remedies to purge and cure our sick souls.
SS. PHILEAS, MM.
BISHOP OF THMUIS, AND PHILOROMUS.
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PHILEAS was a rich nobleman of Thmuis[1] in Egypt, very eloquent and
learned. Being converted to the faith, he was chosen bishop of that
city; but was taken and carried prisoner to Alexandria by the
persecutors, under the successors of Dioclesian. Eusebius has preserved
part of a letter which he wrote in his dungeon, and sent to his flock to
comfort and encourage them.[2] Describing the sufferings of his fellow
confessors at Alexandria, he says that every one had full liberty
allowed to insult, strike, and beat them with rods, whips, or clubs.
Some of the confessors, with their hands behind their backs, were tied
to pillars, their bodies stretched out with engines, and their sides,
belly, thighs, legs, and cheeks, hideously torn with iron hooks: others
were hung by one hand, suffering excessive pain by the stretching of
their joints: others hung by both hands, their bodies being drawn down.
The governor thought no treatment too bad for Christians. Some expired
on the racks; others expired soon after they were taken down: others
were laid on their backs in the dungeons, with their legs stretched out
in the wooden stocks to the fourth hole, &c. Culcian, who had been
prefect of Thebais, was then governor of all Egypt, under the tyrant
Maximinus, but afterwards lost his head in 313, by the order of
Licinius. We have a long interrogatory of St. Phileas before him from
the presidial registers. Culcian, after many other things, asked him,
"Was Christ God?" The saint answered, "Yes;" and alleged his miracles as
a proof of his divinity. The governor professed a great regard for his
quality and merit, and said: "If you were in misery, or necessity, you
should be {352} dispatched without more ado; but as you have riches and
estates sufficient not only for yourself and family, but for the
maintenance almost of a whole province, I pity you, and will do all in
my power to save you." The counsellors and lawyers, desirous also of
saving him, said: "He had already sacrificed in the Phrontisterium, (or
academy for the exercises of literature.") Phileas cried out: "I have
not by any immolation; but say barely that I have sacrificed, and you