The Persecution Under Severus

When Severus too began to stir up persecution against the churches, glorious martyrdoms were accomplished everywhere by the athletes of godliness. They were most numerous in Alexandria. Athletes of God were sent on there from Egypt and the whole of the Thebaid, as to the greatest of stadiums, and through their most steadfast endurance of all kinds of tortures and forms of death they bound on the crowns that come from God. Among them was Leonides, known as the father of Origen, who was beheaded and left his son still quite young. Since a great deal is said about that son among many people, it will not be out of place to tell briefly what devotion to the divine word he had from that time. [a]