PREFACE, XXXYV
of punishment.1
When John, the son of Pisentios, Bishop of Coptos, complained of having had no water for two or three days, his father asked him to imagine what the sufferings must be2 of those who had to pass through the river of fire in hell, ⲁⲙⲉⲛϯ ⲉⲧⲥⲁ ⲡⲉⲥⲏⲧ.
The punishments meted out to souls in Amenti were various: “some, whose sins are many, are now in Amenti, some are in outer darkness, some are in pits and wells filled with fire, some are in the nethermost hell, ⲁⲙⲉⲛϯ ⲉⲧⲥⲁ ⲡⲉⲥⲏⲧ, some are in the river of fire, and to these no rest hath been vouchsafed until this minute."3
The dead men who were raised to life by the martyrs give us accounts of what they saw and what they suffered.
When Macarius of Antioch had raised to life a man who had been dead six hours, he asked him that had been dead to describe his state after death4, and the man replied, "I was a man who worshiped idols; and when I came to die the dekans (ϩⲁⲛⲇⲏⲕⲁⲛⲟⲥ), came after me, and their faces and forms were different from one another.
Some had the face of a beast, some had the face of a dragon, some had the face of a lion, some had the face of a crocodile and some had the face of a bear.5
And they tore my soul from my body with terrible mercilessness, and they ran away
1 Amélinean, Etude sur le Christianisme en Egypte an Septiome siecle p 80.
2 Ibid. p. 140.
3 Ibid. p, 144.
4 Hyvernat, Les Actes des Martyrs de P Egypte, p. 56.
5 Compare the various forms of the heads of the 42 assessors of the dead in the vignette of the 125th chap. of the Book of the Dead.
