السيرة
Lives of the Saints and Martyrs in the Coptic Orthodox Church
**In Qift**
When the Emperor Diocletian issued his orders to persecute the Christians, Arianus, governor of Antinoë, went about throughout all of Upper Egypt with no occupation but the torturing of the faithful. When he arrived by ship at the shore of the city of Qift (on the Nile), the priests of the idols came out hypocritically to meet him, boasting before him and saying, "Live forever, our lord, for there is no one in our city who makes mention of the name of Christ." Arianus rejoiced greatly and lavished gifts upon them, and he offered sacrifices to the gods and set off in his ship.
A Christian boy named "Emsah" or "Boimsah" heard of this. He lived in the north of the city with his sister Theodora (Tawadora) in an orchard known as the Field of the Women. They worked in it together to live on their necessary sustenance, and gave whatever remained to the poor.
The boy grieved when he learned what these priests had done. Perhaps his grief was over the hypocrisy and falsehood these pagans had displayed in order to obtain many gifts from Arianus; or perhaps he felt that by this he himself had been deprived of attaining the crown of martyrdom; or perhaps he counted his silence concerning what these pagan priests had said as an implicit denial of his faith. He did not know what to do, but prayed, asking for God's guidance and help.
One night the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, asking him to set off to Qaw, where he would find the governor and confess the name of the Lord Christ, and the angel told him beforehand all that would happen to him, so as to strengthen and comfort him.
**To Qaw**
In the morning, when he awoke from his sleep, he lifted up a fervent prayer to God, went out to the shore of the city, and boarded a ship, setting off to Qaw as the angel had commanded, without telling his sister anything. There he found Arianus torturing the Christians, so he cried out that he was a Christian. The governor ordered him to be cruelly scourged until his body was filled with wounds and he was bleeding; but God sent His angel and healed him within the prison into which he had been cast.
On the following day the soldiers scourged him again, then wrapped him in a mat and cast him into the Nile. So he yielded up his spirit into the hand of God and attained the crown of martyrdom on the 16th of the month of Kiahk (according to the Coptic Synaxarium of René Basset, the 15th of Kiahk).
God prepared a crocodile in the Nile that drew the mat, with the body of the saint in it, and carried it off until it reached the city of Qift, where it cast it upon the shore.
The Angel of the Lord appeared to his sister in the night and made known to her the glory her brother had attained. In the morning she informed the priests, and they set off, together with the faithful, to the shore, and carried his body with great honor, and buried it in his orchard. After the period of persecution had passed, the faithful built a church in his name, and God manifested many wonders in the church through his prayers.
It is said that in the days of Anastasius, emperor of the East, he sent a commander to the land of Egypt to collect the tribute. When he reached the city of Qift, the faithful heard of him that he was unjust, violent, and hard of heart. So they gathered in the church, seeking the mercy of God through the prayers of the martyr Emsah. When the commander learned of this, he set off to the church and found its doors shut, so he stretched out his hand to set fire to the door, and behold, his hand withered and he was struck with paralysis. His men carried him to the ship, and on the way he died. When Anastasius heard of this, he glorified God and commanded that the tax-collectors deal gently with the people