SEVERE AND LAMENTABLE PERSECUTION, INSTITUTED BY MADY, KING OF THE ARABIANS, AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN BELIEVERS IN THE EAST, ABOUT A. D. 780
About A. D. 780, in the fifth year of Leo IV, son of Constantine Copronymus, Mady, King of the Arabians, greatly devastated the church of Page 232 God in the East, constraining the innocent and defenseless Christians to apostatize, especially the servants and slaves. To this end he had given full power to one Thesias, surnamed Zelotes, to inflict upon the Christians all manner of oppression. The latter, upon coming to Emesas, promised to constrain no one to apostatize, or to become marked with the sign of Mohammed, except the Jews, or those who had long before not been Christians, but unbelievers. But when the Jews and the Christians had been separated, he commenced to torment the Christians far more cruelly than had ever been done by the Governors Lysias and Agricolaus, under the heathen Emperors; so that he put to death many of them, men as well as women, for the name of Jesus Christ. In the meantime something remarkable occurred here. Certain women whom he visited with various torments, to see whether he could not make them yield to his ungodliness, remained steadfast, overcoming, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, his fury with patience. He caused a thousand stripes to be given them, and had them scourged and tormented unto death, till they received from Christ the crown of victory. Proceeding thence throughout Syria, he demolished, as far as Damascus, all the meeting places of the Christians, and ravaged the churches, thus breaking the promise made by the Arabians to those of Syria, viz.: That under their rule they should live in peace and tranquillity, and enjoy the free and unrestricted practice of their religion. But (as the apostle says) as then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it was now, Gal. 4:29. See Abr. Mell., 2d book, fol. 306, col. 1, compare with Paul. Diae., lib. 23, Hist. Rot&, in Leone 4. Sigibert. Chron., A. D. 781; others, however, fix it A. D. 780.
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