Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vol. LIV: Augustini Epistulae Pars I

But the woman, stronger than her sex, when the rack eculeus a torture device used for stretching the body stretched her body and chains held back her hands, dirtied by the filth of the prison, looked up to heaven with eyes that the torturer alone could not bind, and with tears rolling over her face, she said: 'You, Lord Jesus, are my witness, to whom nothing is hidden, who are the searcher of reins and heart A reference to Psalm 7:10, often interpreted in the Latin Vulgate as "scrutator renis et cordis". I do not wish to deny the charge so that I may survive, but I refuse to lie so that I may not sin. But you, most wretched man, if you hasten to perish, why do you destroy two innocent people? Indeed, I myself desire to die; I desire to cast off this hated body, but not as an adulteress. I offer my neck; I receive the flashing blade without fear; I shall carry only my innocence with me. He who is killed to live does not die.'

4. Therefore, the consul, his eyes fed on the gore like a wild beast that, having tasted blood once, always thirsts for it, orders the tortures to be doubled, and gnashing his teeth like a savage, threatened the executioner with the same punishment if the weaker sex did not confess what the male strength could not keep silent.

5. 'Help, Lord Jesus: how many tortures have been invented for one person of yours!'

Her hair is tied to a post and her whole body is more strongly bound to the rack; fire is placed near her feet,