if necessary, to his faith. The majority of the Egyptian people did not recognise him as patriarch, instead recognising Pope Benjamin I, who had gone into hiding and was relentlessly hunted by Cyrus, though without success. On one occasion, Cyrus's troops seized Benjamin’s brother Mennas and burned him with torches until, according to Severus ibn al-Muqaffa, ‘the fat dropped down from both his sides to the ground’. Still unshaken, his teeth were pulled out, and he was stuffed into a sack filled with sand and taken by a boat seven bowshots away from the shore. Three times he was offered his life if he accepted the Council of Chalcedon, and three times he refused, before he was thrown into the sea and drowned. 'Yet it was not they who were victorious over Menas, that champion of the faith, but Menas who by Christian patience overcame them,' says the biographer of Benjamin. On another occasion, Cyrus sent for an Egyptian Archbishop, Samuel the Confessor, and had him brought in chains like a thief. Samuel went rejoicing in the Lord and saying, 'Please God, it will be given me this day to shed my blood for the name of Christ.' When Cyrus saw him, he ordered the soldiers to beat him until his blood ran like water. Then he said to him, 'Samuel, you wicked ascetic, who is he that made you abbot of the monastery, and bade you teach the monks to curse me and my faith?' Holy Abba Samuel answered, 'It is good to obey God and His holy Archbishop Benjamin rather than obey you and your devilish doctrine, O son of Satan, Antichrist, Beguiler.' Cyrus bade the soldiers to smite him on the mouth, saying, 'Your spirit is kindled, Samuel, because the monks glorify you as an ascetic: but I will teach you what it is to speak evil of dignities, since you render me not the honour which is my due as Archbishop and my due as Controller of the Revenues of the land of Egypt.' Samuel replied, 'Satan also was controller, having angels under him: but his pride and unbelief estranged him from the glory of God. So with you also, O Chalcedonian Deceiver, your faith is defiled and you are more accursed than the devil and his angels.' On hearing this, the Cyrus was filled with fury against the saint, and signed to the soldiers to