ON THE 2000 MARTYRS.
From the Mazarine Menaea.
CommentaryAnonymous Martyrs (SS.)
J. P.
This numerous and likewise glorious phalanx of twice a thousand Martyrs would perhaps have been wrapped in perpetual shadows of oblivion and passed over by us in our Acts, had not the Mazarine apograph supplied some light, which agrees in almost all things with the Chifflet one. Thus they are there announced: "The holy two thousand Martyrs are consummated by the sword." The holy two thousand Martyrs are consummated by the sword. I add two little verses from the Mazarine codex already named: "The sword strikes two thousand of the venerable Athletes, from whom cowardice is far." The iron slays twice a thousand noble Champions: in these is no fear of men.
The allusion in the word "chiliandria," which designates a band of two thousand men, and in the word "deilandria," which you might not incongruously call the fear inflicted by men, cannot be imitated in Latin with equal brevity and energy.