Thebaid

Who could fail to be thrilled by the breathless narration of “Thebes and Its Mighty Ruins,” recounted by Warburton: “It was late when we returned to our tents, after fourteen hours’ exposure to the powerful sun of the Thebaid.

For nearly five hundred miles every city and town, every least village and hamlet, stood right on the banks of the great water-way; and it is probable that half the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and the Thebaid were often floating on its bosom at one and the same time.

On the one hand, Eusebius tells us that the Church had spread over the whole Thebaid.

He was not content with torturing and slaying in the city itself, but sent his emissaries up the Nile to the very extremity of the Thebaid to hunt up the Christians and send them by boatloads to the capital for judgment and punishment.

The presbyter would inquire, during his stay, of the heads of the Catechetical school, of the ancient priests, and of the patriarch; he would be satisfied that what the archdeacon said was true; and he would return to his city on the Red Sea, or at the extremity of the Thebaid, or on the north-western coast of the continent, with authentic intelligence that the Apostolic Church of Alexandria rejected Hermas from the Scripture canon, and that, therefore, it certainly ought to be rejected by his own Church.