Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology. Authority:—A paschal letter by Dionysius, patriarch of Alexandria, quoted by Eusebius. lib. viii. c. 21, 22.

These brave victims of the plague in Alexandria, who died through ministering to pest-stricken heathens and Christians alike, are commemorated by the Church as examples to all whose office or charity calls them to attend to the sick. Dionysius, the patriarch [the title of the bishops of the great ancient sees: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem], writes of the pestilence which succeeded war and famine in Alexandria, in one of his Easter letters, "To other men the present is a fit season for a festival, but now to us all things are filled with tears; all are mourning, and by reason of the multitudes, already dead and dying, the whole city resounds with groans. As when the first-born of Egypt were slain, so is it now; there is a great lamentation, for there is not a house in which is not one dead. I wish this were all, but we have undergone other calamities before this plague. First, we were driven into exile, and persecuted, and put to death; then came war and the famine, which, indeed, we and the heathen endured alike; and now we are assailed by this pestilence, a calamity to the heathen more dreadful than anything else, but not so to us, but rather a school to try us. Most of our brethren, by their exceeding great love and brotherly affection, not sparing themselves, were constant in their attendance on the sick, ministering to their wants without fear and without cessation, and they have departed most sweetly with those to whom they ministered. Many also, who had healed others, fell victims themselves. The best of our brethren have departed this life in this way, some were priests, others deacons, and some laity of great commendation. This death, with the piety and ardent faith which attended it, appears to be but little inferior to martyrdom itself. Our people took up the bodies of these saints with their open hands and on their bosoms, cleansed their eyes and closed their mouths, carried them on their shoulders, and composed their limbs, and decently washed and clothed them for burial, and those who did this themselves shared in receiving the same offices. Those that survived always followed those going before them. But it was different with the heathen. They repelled those who began to sicken, and avoided their dearest friends. They would cast them out into the roads half-dead, or throw them out when dead without burial, shunning all communication with the sick and infected."