refused, and after having been long tortured in vain, at length he was put to death, his head being struck off, and the trunk thrown out beyond the town walls to be devoured by the wild beasts. But the Christians took it up during the night and having embalmed it with rich spices and shrouded it in fair linen, they buried it honourably in a prominent place in the Church, since they regarded him, and with justice, as a Martyr. But upon the next Sunday when the Deacon had chanted the ritual formula, bidding the Catechumens and those who should not be present to withdraw, all were sore amazed when the tomb suddenly opened and the body of the Martyr glided there from and was seen lingering in the narthex of the church. When the Mass was done the body seemed to return once more to its grave.
The whole community was filled with fearful awe and confusion, and a Basilian nun of great piety having fasted and prayed for the space of three days received a revelation from an angel who informed her that the Coenobite was still excommunicate since he had disobeyed his superior, and that he would remain under the ban until the superior himself granted him absolution. Thereupon a company of honourable persons journeyed to the monastery, and besought the archimandrite to pronounce the words. In all haste the holy old man accompanied them to the church. Here they opened the tomb of the Martyr and a full absolution was pronounced. Thereafter he lay at rest in his appointed place.
There are several details in this account which appear very suspicious. In the first place, at the period that the desert was the resort of Coenobites, the days of persecution, so far as Alexandria was concerned, at any rate, were a thing of the past. In the city complete toleration prevailed, and indeed if there had been any prosecutions, not Christianity but the Pagan rites would have been suppressed and the heathen temples closed. Christianity in this century was honoured throughout the whole of Egypt, and Alexandria was one of the strongholds. In the second place, the monks of the desert were not Coenobites, that is to say members of a definite religious community having a Superior, but they were rather solitary hermits, belonging to no religious family, each being independent, and no hermit would have had the power to excommunicate one of his fellows. In the third place, no
