(A.D. 261-3.)
[Roman Martyrology. Authority:--A paschal letter by Dionysius,
patriarch of Alexandria, quoted by Eusebius. lib. viii. c. 21, 22.]
These brave victims of the plague in Alexandria, who died through
ministering to pest-stricken heathens and Christians alike, are
commemorated by the Church as examples to all whose office or charity
calls them to attend to the sick. Dionysius, the patriarch, writes of
the pestilence which succeeded war and famine in Alexandria, in one of
his Easter letters, "To other men the present is a fit season for a
festival, but now to us all things are filled with tears; all are
mourning, and by reason of the multitudes, already dead and dying, the
whole city resounds with groans. As when the first-born of Egypt were
slain, so is it now; there is a great lamentation, for there is not a
house in which is not one dead. I wish this were all, but we have
undergone other calamities before this plague. First, we were driven
into exile, and persecuted, and put to death; then came war and the
famine, which, indeed, we and the heathen endured alike; and now we
are assailed by this pestilence, a calamity to the heathen more
dreadful than anything else, but not so to us, but rather a school to
try us. Most of our brethren, by their exceeding great love and
brotherly affection, not sparing themselves, were constant in their
attendance on the sick, ministering to their wants without fear and
without cessation, and they have departed most sweetly with those to
whom they ministered. Many also, who had healed others, fell victims
themselves. The best of our brethren have departed this life in this
way, some were priests, others deacons, and some laity of great
commendation. This death, with the piety and ardent faith which
attended it, appears to be but little inferior to martyrdom itself.
Our people took up the bodies of these saints with their open hands
and on their bosoms, cleansed their eyes and closed their mouths,
carried them on their shoulders, and composed their limbs, and
decently washed and clothed them for burial, and those who did this
themselves shared in receiving the same offices. Those that survived
always followed those going before them. But it was different with the
heathen. They repelled those who began to sicken, and avoided their
dearest friends. They would cast them out into the roads half-dead, or
throw them out when dead without burial, shunning all communication
with the sick and infected."