Chapter 1

Diocletian, therefore, was the thirty-third emperor of the Romans. He began to reign in the year of the Lord 287 [read: 284], and in the year of the world 4,250, or, according to the other, greater computation, 5,486.

He was the son of a Dalmatian scribe. Having been elected emperor, he immediately killed Aper in a military assembly, swearing that Numerianus had been killed by Aper without any crime on Diocletian’s part.

Diocletian ordered that he be adored as a god and was the first to order gems inserted into clothing and footwear. Before him, all emperors were greeted in the manner of judges and had nothing beyond private dress except the purple cloak. He overcame and destroyed in an exceedingly difficult war Karinus [read: Carinus], the brother of Emperor Numerianus, who was living disgracefully in Dalmatia [read: was defeated at Margum in Moesia].

In those days Amandus and Helinandus [read: Aelianus] stirred up a destructive rebellion in Gaul after gathering a multitude of peasants called Bagaudae, as Hugh of Fleury testifies. Diocletian therefore made Maximian Herculius, once his fellow soldier, Caesar and sent him into Gaul. By military valor he easily subdued the untrained and disordered multitude of countrymen. On this very journey, however, the sacred Theban Legion of Maurice and his companions suffered martyrdom at Maximian’s hands, as will be told.

While Diocletian and Maximian were persecuting the Christians, the grave uproars of sudden disturbances resounded throughout all the borders of the Roman Empire. Chaurausio [read: Carausius], who had been stationed to guard the shores of the Ocean, was rebelling in Britain; Archilleus [read: Achilleus] in Egypt and the Quinquegentiani were troubling Africa; and Narseus, king of the Persians, was oppressing the East with war.

Moved by this danger, Diocletian raised Maximian Herculius from Caesar to Augustus. He made Constantius and Maximinus [read: Maximianus] Caesars, giving Theodora, the daughter [read: stepdaughter] of Maximian Herculius, as wife to Constantius, and his own daughter to Maximinus [read: Maximianus] Galerius.

Of these men, Constantius, the father of Constantine the Great, was the grandson of Claudius through his daughter, according to Eusebius in the Chronicle. Galerius was born in Dacia. So that Diocletian might also join them to himself by affinity, Constantius received Theodora, the stepdaughter of Herculius, from whom he afterward had seven [read: six] children, the brothers of Constantine. Galerius married Valeria, Diocletian’s daughter. Both men were compelled to repudiate the wives they had previously had.

Constantius Caesar’s army was defeated by the Alemanni in his first battle in Gaul, as Hugh says, and Constantius himself scarcely escaped. In the second battle, very favorable fortune or victory followed him, for seventy thousand [read: about sixty thousand] Alemanni are reported to have been slain within a few hours.

Maximian Augustus subdued the Quinquegentiani in Africa. Diocletian besieged Archilleus [read: Achilleus] for seven months [read: approximately eight months], captured him at Alexandria, and killed him. But, using his victory immoderately, he gave Alexandria over to pillage and defiled all Egypt with proscriptions.

In those days the renowned young Constantine, son of Constantius Caesar, whom Constantius had begotten from Helena, his earlier wife, was also with Diocletian. At Galerius’s instigation, Diocletian attempted deceitfully to kill him. Having discovered the deception, Constantine returned safely to his father by divine providence.

Maximinus [read: Maximianus] Galerius had already fought two battles against Narseus. Defeated in a third encounter [source: defeated in one initial engagement near Callinicum and Carrhae] and having lost his forces, he fled to Diocletian, by whom he was received with the greatest arrogance. It is related that, clothed in purple, he was made to run before Diocletian’s vehicle for several miles.

§ I: The Persecution and the Theban Legion

This Diocletian ruled with Maximian for twenty years. Their persecution against the Christians was the tenth and was harsher and longer-lasting than all the others, as Hugh says. Once the fury of this persecution had begun, it did not cease to rage until the seventh year of the reign of Constantine the Great.

Eusebius says in the History that the fire of the aforesaid persecution took its beginning from a small spark among the soldiers alone. When inquiry was made whether any of the soldiers were Christians, very many of them abandoned military service for the faith of Christ, and not a few even laid down their lives.

Chief among them were Maurice and the sacred Legion of the Thebans, numbering 6,666. As Vincent relates from their deeds in Book XIII, Chapter 2 of the Speculum Historiale, they were from Thebes in Egypt, a most noble city situated upon the Nile. These Christian soldiers received the most Christian faith in the East from Saint Zabda, bishop of Jerusalem. Coming to the city, they confirmed their faith before Pope Marcellinus, resolving to perish by swords before violating the faith they had received.

[Running head: Chapter One, Folio 247.]

They were joined to Maximian’s army when he advanced into Gaul against the rebellious Bagaudae. After crossing the Alps, while they were encamped on a certain plain, Maximian ordered everyone to sacrifice to the idols and pledge their loyalty in pursuing the Bagaudae and the Christians.

When the sacred legion heard this, it refused to consent to this crime and withdrew eight miles from Octodurum, where Maximian and his men were. Hearing this, Caesar commanded them to be recalled. When the sacred legion refused, he said: “Injury to heaven is joined to contempt for me. Therefore let the defiant soldier feel that my gods are able to give me vengeance.”

Inflamed with anger, he sent a great many soldiers and ordered every tenth man among those refusing to return to sacrifice to be beheaded. The saints joyfully offered their heads and seemed almost to vie with one another over who might precede the other to death.

When a tenth part of them had been beheaded, Saint Maurice, their commander and chief, addressed the survivors to comfort them. Through devotion to the faith and the example of their companions, he exhorted them steadfastly to complete what they had begun.

When Maximian was informed of their firm resolve in the faith, he again commanded every tenth man to be slaughtered. After this was done, Exuperius the standard-bearer repeated the exhortation with the commander Maurice. When they had been most powerfully strengthened, the soldiers were sent back and slaughtered them on every side as they cast down their arms and offered their naked bodies.

After this cruelty had been completed, the army sat down to feast. Among the slain they invited to eat with them, from motives of humanity, a certain old man named Victor who happened to be passing by. He asked how they could eat with joy among so many corpses of the slain. When he heard from one of them that they had been killed because they refused to sacrifice to the gods, he groaned and sighed, saying that he had lived so long and had not deserved to be found in their fellowship. Since he considered himself most blessed for this reason, they perceived from it that he was a Christian and immediately killed him.

As the Church was being enlarged by prosperous growth, Eusebius says, the whirlwind of persecution suddenly burst forth. For Diocletian issued an edict that all the churches in the world should be razed to the ground, the sacred scriptures should everywhere be consumed by fire, and all who presided over the churches should be placed in chains and then compelled by exquisite torments to sacrifice to the gods.

They therefore seized all the leaders of the churches and holy clerics, and with them many noble and ignoble people, women, and children. As Eusebius writes in the History, some were torn with whips, others gouged with claws, and others burned with glowing plates. Some of these, exhausted, yielded, but others preserved patience to the end.

Certain persecutors, moved as though by compassion, brought some of our people to the accursed sacrifices and proclaimed that they had sacrificed, although they had not. Those people became guilty only because they endured in silence the charge laid against them. Others were carried away half alive and cast out as though dead. Others were dragged by the feet and counted among those who had sacrificed.

Others cried out with a great voice that they had not sacrificed but were Christians, and were adorned by rejoicing in such a confession. Some testified with still greater confidence that they had neither sacrificed nor would ever sacrifice. The soldiers standing by continually beat their mouths and eyes to silence them and violently expelled them as though they had consented. So great was the zeal of the impious to seem to have fulfilled their purpose. Thus far Eusebius.

Once the fury of the persecution had begun, Hugh says, it did not cease to rage until the seventh year of the reign of Constantine the Great.

In the province of Egypt also, according to Eusebius in the Ecclesiastical History, men, women, and children sought future glory with no less glory by holding their present life of little value for the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some of them, after beatings, claws, scourges, and other torments of diverse kinds, were handed over to the flames. Others were hurled into the sea. Some were beheaded, so that they voluntarily offered their necks to the axes. Some were consumed by hunger.

Others were affixed to gibbets, some of them with their heads pressed downward and feet raised on high. On others torturers applied broken pieces of earthen vessels in place of claws and so lacerated their bodies until they scraped away the whole skin of the flesh.

They also suspended women naked by a certain device, one foot raised on high and their heads plunged toward the ground, and allowed them to hang throughout the entire day in a most shameful spectacle. Elsewhere, if two neighboring trees were found, they bent the branches of each toward one another, bound one foot of a martyr to each branch, and suddenly released the branches they had bent, so that they tore the limbs apart from one another.

“We also saw with our own eyes,” Eusebius says, “that when a judge in Egypt ordered innumerable peoples of the faithful who confessed themselves Christians to be punished by beheading, all of them voluntarily—indeed, each striving to precede the other—offered their necks to those striking them. No one among them, not even a little infant, could be deterred from death. Each feared only this: lest, because of sunset and the obstacle of night, they might be separated from the fellowship of the martyrs.” Thus far Eusebius.

§ II: Saint Victor of Marseille

After Maximian had completed the aforesaid slaughter of the holy Thebans and arrived at the city of Marseille, he decreed that everyone should either offer sacrifices to the gods or perish by diverse deaths.

When the minds of the Christians were disturbed by this decree, blessed Victor thrust himself into their midst and was immediately seized and presented before the tribunals of the prefects. There, as he testified to the faith of Christ with a steadfast countenance and free voice, a cry immediately arose from those standing around him.

After he had endured many injuries from everyone, the prefects decreed that his case should be referred to Caesar for a hearing. He was immediately brought into Caesar’s presence. Beset on every side by many accusations, he was driven toward sacrifice with the greatest terrors. Yet Victor, stronger than the one terrifying him and filled with the Holy Spirit, refuted the emperor and his nobles with marvelous prudence, exposing the emptiness of the idols’ worship and confirming the faith of Christ by certain reasoning.

Then Caesar turned to rage. At his command the martyr of God was bound tightly with ropes and dragged through the whole city, so that by his shameful punishment they might avenge the injury done to the gods and terrify the spirits of the Christians.

When the eyes of the spectators had been satisfied by such mockery, Victor was again presented before the tribunals and exhorted even more sharply to deny Christ and adore the idols. Blessed Victor replied wisely to each of their objections, silencing them all by the weight of his arguments. But the madmen ordered him to choose one thing: either appease the gods or perish unhappily.

He said: “If you propose the matter in this way, What we taught in words and by due examples [read: What we taught in words you will see by examples]: I despise the gods and confess Christ. Give whatever punishments you can; multiply the torments.”

At Asterius’s command he was immediately affixed to a gibbet and tortured, but the Lord appeared to him and comforted him. Afterward he was thrust into prison but immediately refreshed by heavenly light and angelic consolation.

While he exulted and sang psalms, the three soldiers guarding him—Alexander, Longinus, and Felicianus—were pierced to the heart, prostrated themselves at his feet, and asked to be baptized. When the emperor heard what had happened, he condemned those three soldiers to capital punishment. He had Victor, the author of their conversion, suspended again, torn with clubs and bull’s sinews, and returned to prison.

After three days, when Victor was found unchanged in every respect, threats, curses, and reproaches were renewed against him. By Caesar’s order he was placed before the altar of Jove. But the holy man, with the sole of his foot, cast down the statue from the priest’s own hand, and immediately, by Maximian’s order, was deprived of that same foot.

Finally, when he was about to render his body and soul to God, he was led to a mill and soon placed beneath its stone and cruelly crushed. A little later the machine was broken apart by divine power. When he was seen still breathing for a little while, his head was cut off. Immediately a heavenly voice was heard: “You have conquered, blessed Victor; you have conquered!”

When, by the emperor’s command, his body had been immersus [read: immersum, immersed] in the waves of the sea, it was carried with the swiftest passage through the ministry of angels to the opposite shore and devoutly buried by the worshipers of Christ.

§ III: The Stonecutters

Emperor Diocletian went to Pannonia to have various stone quarried from the mountains in his presence. As he assembled all the quarry workers, he found among them men marvelous in the art of cutting squared stone: Claudius, Castorius, Sempronianus, and Nicostratus. They were Christians in secret, and whatever they made in sculpture they sculpebat [read: sculpebant, carved] in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hence their polished works pleased Diocletian.

When they were sent with a multitude of craftsmen to cut stone on the porphyry mountain, his art served Claudius well because he did everything in the name of Jesus Christ. Simplicius, however, who was a gentile, did not find all the works he made successful.

Nicostratus said to him, “Brother, why is your tool broken?”

He replied, “I ask you, temper it for me so that it will not break.”

Claudius took the iron carving tool and blessed it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that it might be strong and sound for performing the works. Simplicius then began to make his works well and correctly with those tools. With marvelous eagerness he began to inquire what kind of tempering it was, since the edges of their tools never broke.

Sempronianus said, “The Creator of all has himself strengthened his creature.”

Simplicius asked him, “Does not the god Jove make everything?”

He replied: “You have blasphemed. The God whom we confess—the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit—created everything. For the one whom you call a god is carved by our hands.”

Simplicius said: “I adjure you by the sun-god to tell me who it is who created everything and in whose name you work so well. For I see that you secretly pray to someone whom I do not know. Reveal this prayer of yours to me, so that you may enjoy my friendship.”

Claudius replied: “We faithfully tell you to believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and receive baptism; then all things will minister to you.”

He said: “Then do not delay, so that I may be of one mind with you in art and religion.”

They led him to Saint Quirillus, a bishop brought from Antioch with many other confessors of Christ, bound in chains and already lacerated for three years by many beatings, so that the bishop might baptize him. When this was done, they returned to their works.

One of the philosophers saw that they did nothing without the sign of the cross. In anger he said: “This sign belongs to the magic art, for it pertains to cruelty, and through it everything goes prosperously for you.”

The philosophers therefore accused them before Augustus out of envy. Delighted by their works, Diocletian ordered them to make Victories, Cupids, shells, and especially an Asclepius. They made everything else except the image of Asclepius. For this reason, accused by the philosophers, they were rebuked by Augustus.

Claudius answered him: “Augustus, we have always obeyed your piety, but we shall never make the image of a most wretched man, because it is written, ‘Let those who make them become like them,’” and so forth.

Those standing by burned with anger against them, and Diocletian committed their case to Lampadius. When they refused at his command to adore the sun, he had them stripped and beaten with scorpion whips. At that same hour Lampadius was seized by a demon and expired while tearing himself apart.

When Diocletian learned this, he angrily ordered them shut in leaden coffins and cast enclosed into the river. When Quirillus, who was in prison, heard this, he afflicted himself and departed to the Lord.

After forty-two days, a certain Christian named Nicodemus raised their bodies together with the coffins and placed them in his house.

Afterward Diocletian came to Rome and compelled the entire soldiery to sacrifice to Asclepius. Four cornicularii who resisted were killed by blows from lead-weighted scourges, and their bodies were cast to the dogs in the street. But blessed Sebastian, who was a Christian in secret, raised them at night with Pope Melchiades [chronologically impossible: Melchiades became pope only in 311] and buried them on the Labican Way.

Since this happened not at the same time but two years later, and their names could not be found, blessed Melchiades [chronologically impossible in Sebastian’s setting] ordained that their annual day of martyrdom should be celebrated under the names of the aforesaid Claudius and his companions, on the seventh day before the Ides of November [read: the sixth day before the Ides, 8 November]. Their names were revealed afterward.

§ IV: Saint Sebastian

Concerning Saint Sebastian, whose martyrdom is very celebrated and whose history is notable: this glorious martyr, as Vincent relates from his deeds in Book XIII of the Speculum Historiale, was a citizen of Milan. He was so dear to the emperors Diocletian and Maximian that they entrusted him with command of the first cohort and ordered him continually to stand in their presence. The soldiers also revered him as a father.

He rendered devoted service to Christ his God but acted so that this would remain hidden from the sacrilegious kings. He was not terrified by fear of suffering; rather, living as a soldier of Christ beneath the cloak of an earthly empire, he wished to comfort the spirits of Christians whom he saw failing amid torments.

Therefore, when the most illustrious men Marcus and Marcellianus, twin brothers, had been placed in chains for the name of Christ, Sebastian offered them consolation each day. To them and to their servants who had been detained with them, he supplied saving counsels of faith so that they might despise the fleeting enticements of the world and not fear the momentary kinds of torments.

Because they would not consent to sacrifice, endured the executioners’ beatings patiently, and had been ordered to undergo a capital sentence, their father Tranquillinus and their mother Martia obtained a reprieve of thirty days from Chromatius, prefect of the city, so that in the interval they might be able to persuade them to sacrifice.

[Running head: Chapter One, Folio 248.]

Their friends therefore approached and said: “Whence comes so hard a mind and so iron a heart in you, that you allow your father’s gray hairs to be cast aside and bring new birth pangs upon your already decrepit mother? Incomparable grief! Life is despised, glory rejected, and, after all the affections of devotion have been scorned, the horror of death is sought.”

While they said such things, the mother came, crying that she was wretched. With her hair loosened, she displayed the gray hairs of her old age. Before them she tore the garment that covered her, and, while everyone wept, she showed through the hanging skin the breasts they had sucked. She recalled the caresses shown them in infancy.

“Alas, wretched me, surrounded on every side by grief! I am losing sons who hasten voluntarily to death. If enemies were carrying them away from me, I would follow through the midst of battle lines. If violent judgments shut them away, I would break into the prison, ready to die. This is a new kind of perishing, in which the executioner is begged to destroy. Life desires to perish; death is desired to come.”

As the mother pursued these laments, their infirm and aged father was led in by the hands of servants. Sprinkling dust upon his swan-white head, he raised words of this kind toward heaven: “O sons, staff of my old age and twin light of my inward parts, what sudden madness makes you lovers of death? Such a thing has never pleased the young. Come here, young men, and weep over young men who perish willingly. Approach, fathers, and forbid such things to be done, lest you too suffer them.”

While the old man did these things, behold, the wives of both brothers came with their own children, whom they presented to their gaze, saying: “To whom do you leave us to serve? To whom do you hand over the love of your marriage? Alas, what iron hearts! With what impious kind of cruelty you cast aside your parents, reject your friends, renounce your wives and children, and voluntarily offer yourselves to the executioner!”

Then, amid the wives’ tears and the children’s sighs, the soldiers of Christ began to soften and bend their spirits toward grief.

Saint Sebastian was present at this spectacle, though his military dress concealed that he was a most Christian man. When he saw God’s athletes grow weary in so weighty a contest, he cast himself into their midst and said:

“O most valiant soldiers of Christ, through exceeding courage you have come bravely to the palm, yet through wretched blandishments you lay aside the everlasting crown. Through you let the valor of Christ’s soldiers now learn that you are armed more by faith than by words. Raise above earthly affections the trophy of your contest.

“Those whom you see weeping would surely rejoice if they could know what you know. If they knew that there is another, everlasting life ignorant of sorrow, they would hasten with you to reach it, counting this fugitive life as nothing. For this life has always deceived all who believed in it, mocked those who presumed upon it, and—would that it were guilty only of lying—compelled its lovers to run through every crime.

“It gives gluttony to gluttons, the shipwreck of modesty to adulterers, and execrable perversity to the incestuous. It urges the thief to seize, the wrathful man to rage, and the liar to deceive. It removes justice from judges, chastity from the chaste, and discipline from conduct. To recall greater crimes that it inflicts upon its lovers: if ever a brother has killed a brother, a son his father, or a friend his friend, did they not commit it when led by love of this present life? After it has fattened them upon filth, it hands its servants over to its daughter, that is, eternal death.

“This is the life that deceives you, O friends, so that by unjust counsel you call your friends back as they go toward eternal life. This life urges you, O spouses, to suggest impiety even to the minds of blessed martyrs under the appearance of devotion. If they consented to you, they could indeed remain with you a little longer and afterward be separated—and so separated that you would never see one another except amid everlasting torments.

“There the devouring flame consumes the souls of unbelievers; there dragons eat the lips of blasphemers; there serpents feed upon the breasts of unbelievers with their bites; there wailing and groaning resound; there confused cries and the heat of the conflagration torment. This tribulation ends with no limit, but whoever has been burned is restored for punishments renewed.

“Allow these men, therefore, to escape this punishment, and consider rescuing yourselves as well. Do not fear, for they are not separated from you. They go to heaven to prepare starry mansions for you, in which you may rejoice with them forever. There delights are not hindered by activity; security is disturbed by no care; mourning and groaning are never heard; nothing foul or deformed is ever seen; and open eyes enjoy every beauty and elegance without interruption. The instruments of hymns continually sound, hymns sung by angels to the praise of God. There fragrance is diffused with delight through every limb, and honey-sweet refreshment is received by taste. All things immediately serve with the most ready affection whatever the soul desires.

“Thus, if anyone in this mortal life has fought against his desires as though expending them here, there he will receive them whole from his Creator. Therefore, O friends, O parents, O spouses, do not call those whom you love back from life to death. Present pain is either light and can be endured tolerably, or it is grave and quickly brings an end. Future pain, however, will never end; it assails and continues more sharply.”

While blessed Sebastian delivered these and other words, suddenly, for almost an hour, they were illuminated by an exceedingly great radiance coming from heaven. Beneath that radiance a young man appeared beside Sebastian, clothed in a most white cloak.

These events took place in the house of a certain Nicostratus. His wife, named Zoe, had lost her speech six years earlier through the severity of an illness and was mute. Seized by amazement at so great a miracle, she signified with her hand to all who were present what she could not express with her tongue: those who did not believe so great an assertion by the holy man ought to be reproached.

Saint Sebastian, seeing that she could not explain what she felt, said: “If I am truly a servant of Christ, and if all the things this woman has heard from my mouth and believed are true, may my Lord Jesus command the function of her lips to return to her.”

Then the woman cried out: “Blessed are you, and blessed is the word of your mouth. Blessed are those who believe through you. For I saw with my own eyes an angel coming from heaven and holding books before you, from the reading of which the entire argument of your speech proceeded.”

Seeing this, Nicostratus fell at Sebastian’s knees and begged pardon because, by the emperor’s order, he held Saints Marcus and Marcellianus in chains. Releasing them, he embraced their knees and begged them to depart free, saying: “Oh, how happy I would be if I could deserve to be bound for your salvation!”

They replied to him: “If you have received the glory of faith that you never possessed, why do we, who received it from infancy, abandon the chalice of our suffering to you?”

[Running head: Eighth Title.]

When all who heard these things together displayed repentance with tears, Marcus said: “Learn, holy parents, that all this is the devil’s cunning in war: to rescue the body from torments and subject the soul to vices. But why should those who know that death is the nature of man, not his punishment, fear to die? How many lovers of this false life have been crushed by a grievous ruin, burned by lightning, destroyed in shipwreck, or slain by the sword! Wretchedly losing this life amid pain, they cannot find the true life at all.”

Nicostratus and his wife then sought the mystery of the Christian religion. When all the prisoners had been gathered in Nicostratus’s house, blessed Sebastian exhorted them to receive the faith. After they had been converted, the presbyter Polycarp was summoned and baptized them.

Claudius the jailer also caused his two sons to be brought. One suffered from dropsy and the other from ulcers. He had them baptized, and they were immediately healed. Sixty-eight others were also baptized. Tarquillinus [read: Tranquillinus], the father of Marcus and Marcellianus, was baptized too and freed from gout in his hands and feet.

When Chromatius, prefect of the city, heard that Tarquillinus [read: Tranquillinus] had been perfectly healed—he himself also suffered from a most grievous disease—he asked Tarquillinus [read: Tranquillinus] to bring him the man who had healed him.

Sebastian and Polycarp came to him and said that, if he desired to receive health, he must first renounce the idols and grant them the power to break them. When Chromatius said that his servants would do this, Sebastian replied: “Your timid servants would be afraid to do it. If the devil harmed them on this occasion, they would say that the unbelievers had been struck because they wished to break their gods.”

Thus girded for the task with his permission, Polycarp and Sebastian broke more than two hundred idols. When Chromatius did not receive health, Sebastian said to him: “Since you do not receive health, it is certain that either you have not wholly renounced unbelief or you have preserved some idol.”

Chromatius disclosed that he had a chamber in which was the discipline of the stars, upon which his father had spent more than two hundred pounds of gold and through which he foresaw all future things. Sebastian said to him: “As long as you keep this intact, you will not keep yourself intact.”

When Chromatius consented to this, his son Tiburtius, an excellent young man, said: “I shall not permit so distinguished a work to be destroyed. Yet lest I seem opposed to my father’s health, behold, let two furnaces be kindled, so that if my father does not obtain health after the work is destroyed, they may be burned alive.”

Sebastian answered, “Let it be as you have said.”

When that work had been destroyed, Chromatius was healed by an angel appearing to him. After this, Chromatius himself, his son Tiburtius, and 1,400 men from his household were baptized. Chromatius released his baptized servants from the yoke of slavery, saying: “Those who have God as Father ought not to be the servants of men.”

§ V: The Companions of Sebastian

During the persecution of the Christians, with the knowledge of Pope Gaius, Chromatius secretly received and supported all the Christians in his house.

Pope Gaius came into that house and said to everyone: “The Lord Jesus Christ, foreknowing human frailty, established two ranks among those who believe in him, namely confession and martyrdom. Therefore, those who do not hope that they can bear the weight of martyrdom should retain the glory of confession and go with your children and with Chromatius and Tiburtius. But those who wish may remain with me in this city. For distances of lands do not divide those whom the love of Christ binds together.”

Tiburtius cried out: “I beseech you, father, do not permit me to turn my back upon the persecutors. It is very joyful to me to undergo death for eternal life.” Saint Gaius, rejoicing in his faith, wept.

There remained with Gaius in the city Marcellianus and Marcus; their father Tarquillinus [read: Tranquillinus]; Sebastian and Tiburtius; Nicostratus with his wife Zoe and his brother Castorius; and Claudius with his brother Victorinus.

Pope Gaius made Marcus and Marcellianus deacons, Tarquillinus [read: Tranquillinus] a presbyter, Sebastian a defender of the Church, and the others subdeacons. They all stayed secretly with a certain Castulus, a Christian zecharium [read: zetarium, palace chamberlain]. Day and night, with tears and fasts, they prayed to God that through the endurance of their confession they might be considered worthy to be joined to the number of the holy martyrs. Many sick people were healed by their prayers, the blind were given sight, and demons were driven away.

As Tiburtius passed by, he encountered a man who had fallen from a height and was completely broken, as though dead. After pouring out the Lord’s Prayer over him, Tiburtius restored him to health and, instructing his parents, converted them to Christ.

When Zoe was praying at the shrine of blessed Peter, she was seized by pagans and compelled by the judge to burn incense to the statue of Mars. She replied: “You compel women to sacrifice to Mars so that you may show that your Mars delights in women. Yet though that most shameless god could take modesty from Venus, he will not prevail against me, who carry the trophy of faith upon my forehead.”

She was sent to prison, where she remained for six days without food or drink. Because she persevered in confessing the faith, she was ordered suspended from her neck and hair upon a high tree, with smoke from a dung heap produced beneath her. There she surrendered her spirit. So that her body would not be venerated by Christians, they bound a stone to it and cast it into the Tiber.

She appeared in a dream to blessed Sebastian and informed him of her martyrdom. When he related it to Tarquillinus [read: Tranquillinus], Tarquillinus [read: Tranquillinus] said: “Women precede us to the crown. Why do we live?” On the eighth day, while he prayed at the shrine of blessed Paul, he was stoned by gentiles and his body was cast into the Tiber.

Nicostratus, Claudius, Castorius, Victorinus, and Simphorianus were seized while seeking the bodies of the aforesaid saints along the banks of the Tiber and were brought before the judge Fabian. When for twenty days he could not bend them from their resolve in faith by threats or blandishments, he reported them to the emperor. Because they would not consent under torments to sacrifice to the idols, he ordered them hurled headlong into the midst of the sea.

Meanwhile a certain apostate named Torquatus deceitfully joined himself to Saint Gaius, bishop of the city, with pretended faith. Blessed Tiburtius, a noble and learned man, frequently rebuked him because he artfully arranged his hair, continually dined while playing, willingly exposed himself to the sight of women, and abstained from the brothers’ fasts, prayers, and vigils. Torquatus pretended to receive the admonitions calmly.

By cunning he arranged for unbelievers to seize Saint Tiburtius while he prayed. During that arrest he caused himself also to be detained and led together with Tiburtius to the judge’s private chamber.

The judge Fabian said to Torquatus: “Do you not know that the most invincible princes have ordered those who do not sacrifice to the idols to be worn down by diverse torments?”

Torquatus replied: “Tiburtius here, my master, has always taught me that I must do what I now see him doing.”

Fabian then turned to Tiburtius and asked, “What do you answer to this?”

Tiburtius replied, “Torquatus must answer to God because he lied that he was a Christian.”

[Running head: Chapter One, Folio 249.]

“Do you believe this man to be a Christian,” Tiburtius continued, “who, in pandering to his softness, fimbrias obmittit [read: fimbrias committit, curls the fringes of his hair]; who loves the barber; who sic molliter gessit [read: scapulas molliter gestit, carries his shoulders so effeminately]; who spreads out a flowing gait with improbo visu [read: improbo nisu, immodest effort]; who treats men negligently and willingly looks at women? Does Christ deign to have such men as his own? But this man now clearly displays what sort he has always been.

“I rebuked in him gluttony, the drinking of wine, and the holiness of the divine name buried within him. He ate, drank, and vomited, and now he accuses Christians. He incites an unarmed judge, extends a sword to one unwilling, and urges that we bend our necks to demons.

“Gird yourself now, O most cruel man, and perform the executioner’s office. Claim for yourself even the voice of this very judge. Apply the racks, suspend the Christians, condemn, strike, and burn. Every punishment is cheap to us where the conscience is pure.”

Fabian said to Tiburtius: “Return to your rank and be what nature has dictated. Though born noble, you have fallen into such filth that you can undergo punishment together with infamy and death.”

Tiburtius replied: “O most imprudent of men! Because I refuse to worship the prostitute Venus, the most incestuous Jove, the deceitful Mercury, and Saturn the killer of his children, I incur the disgrace of my noble birth. Because I adore and venerate the one true God who reigns in heaven, punishments are threatened against me.”

Then Fabian ordered burning coals brought before Tiburtius’s feet and said: “Choose one of two things for yourself: either place incense in os carbones edice [read: in hos carbones eiice, upon these coals]—that is, in veneration of the gods—or tread upon these living coals with your bare soles.”

After making the sign of the cross, Tiburtius immediately stepped joyfully upon the burning coals and said to Fabian: “Learn that the Christ whom we confess is God and that he rules over the creatures. It seems to me that I am walking upon rosy flowers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Fabian said, “Who does not know that Christ taught you the magic art?”

Tiburtius replied: “Be silent, and do not inflict upon my ears this injury, that I should hear the honey-sweet and holy name mangled.”

In anger Fabian ordered him led to the Latin Way [read: Via Labicana]. When he was brought there, he departed with a single stroke of the sword, at the place where Christ furnished many benefits to very many people.

After this, Torquatus arranged for Castulus, the saints’ host, to be seized. Persevering in the confession of the Lord, Castulus was ordered thrown into a deep pit and a mass of sand cast over him. Thus, with the palm of martyrdom, he departed to Christ.

After this Marcus and Marcellianus were seized. Both were bound to a stake and received exceedingly sharp spikes in their feet. Fabian said to them: “You will stand with your soles fixed for so long until you render the duty owed to the gods.”

Fixed to the wood, they sang psalms to one another, saying: “Behold how good and how joyful it is for brothers to dwell as one. Never have we feasted so well. Would that you permit us to remain in this way for as long as we are covered by the garment of the body.”

When they had remained for one day and night in praises and hymns, the judge commanded their sides to be pierced with lances. From this they departed to the starry kingdoms.

When these things had been completed, the prefect reported Saint Sebastian to Diocletian. The emperor summoned him and said: “I always held you among the foremost men of my palace, yet, against my welfare, you have until now hidden yourself to the injury of the gods.”

Sebastian replied: “For your welfare I have always worshiped God, and for the condition of the Roman city I have adored the God who is in heaven, considering it the act of a senseless and vain mind to seek help from stones.”

Angered, Diocletian ordered him led into the middle of a field, bound like a target, and pierced with arrows by the soldiers. Fulfilling the command, the soldiers filled him with arrows on every side so that he was bristling with their blows like a hedgehog. Believing him dead, they departed.

Then Irene, the widow of Castulus the palace chamberlain, went by night to take up and bury his body. Finding him alive, she brought him into her house, and within a few days he recovered complete health in every limb.

When all the Christians gathered around him, they urged him to depart. Instead, after praying, he went down to the palace and stood upon the steps of Elagabalus. As the emperors came, he said: “The priests of the temples besiege the minds of your imperial subjects with the most unjust subiectionibus [read: subreptionibus, underhanded insinuations]. They offer false inventions concerning the Christians, saying that they are enemies of the commonwealth, although through their prayers the commonwealth itself improves and grows.”

When he said such things, Diocletian asked, “Is this not Sebastian, whom we ordered killed with arrows?”

Sebastian replied: “My Lord Jesus Christ deigned to raise me for this purpose, that I might meet you and protest before all the people in a just judgment [read: by an unjust judgment] against your persecution, which rages against Christ’s servants.”

Then Diocletian ordered him led to the palace hippodrome and beaten with clubs until he breathed out his spirit. At night they cast his body into the sewer, saying, “Lest perhaps the Christians make him a martyr for themselves.”

Blessed Sebastian appeared in a dream to blessed Lucina, showing her the location of his body. Because it hung upon a hook, no filth had touched it. He instructed her to raise it from there and bury it in the catacombs. She did so.

§ VI: Saint Erasinus [read: Erasmus], Bishop of Antioch

Concerning Saint Erasmus, bishop of Antioch, Vincent relates from his deeds in Book XIII of the Speculum Historiale that, when Diocletian’s decree against the Christians had been issued at Antioch—so that whoever did not sacrifice to the idols would perish by diverse torments—Bishop Erasmus heard it and went into the desert.

He lived there for seven years, devoting himself to prayer and contemplation and shining with signs and powers. The Lord furnished him food through a raven. Diverse wild beasts also laid aside all ferocity, showed themselves tame toward him, and in their own fashion venerated him. He was often comforted by angelic speech.

One day a voice from heaven told him to descend to the city. When he did so, he liberated many people vexed by demons and converted many more to Christ by teaching.

When Diocletian, who was then staying in those regions, heard these things, he ordered Erasmus presented before him. Asked about his profession, Erasmus declared himself a Christian and refused when ordered to sacrifice to the idols. Diocletian had his sides beaten with lead, then grievously beaten with clubs, but nothing harmed him. Afterward he was drenched together with resin, pitch, sulfur, and wax, yet appeared unharmed.

Then the entire people of Antioch cried out: “Release to us the just man, the bishop of the city, because the God of the Christians works in him.”

As these things occurred, behold, a great earthquake arose, together with thunder and lightning for nearly three hours, so that the whole city thought it would perish. Struck by so great a crash, the emperor withdrew.

At last, calling the people back, he said: “This seducer blasphemed our gods, and therefore such a disturbance occurred.” He ordered Erasmus thrust into prison, his neck, hands, and feet bound with chains, and guarded under heavy custody. Under the greatest penalty, he forbade anyone to minister any food or drink to him, and sealed the prison with his own ring.

Around midnight, as the saint cried to the Lord in prayer, an immense light flashed and an exquisite fragrance spread. All the chains were dissolved. As he praised the Lord in prison, an angel of the Lord appeared to him and said: “Rise, Erasmus, follow me, and come with me into Italy. There you will acquire a great people for the Lord.”

Thus he was led from the closed prison and came to the city of Lucrida. When the emperor ordered him presented and he was not found, the emperor remained confounded. The people who had expected him to be summoned to torture did not see him and cried out that the emperor should restore their father to them. He caused them to be told that Erasmus had been carried by angels into heaven.

When Saint Erasmus, led by the angel, arrived at the city of Lucrida, he converted the people to the faith of Christ by teaching confirmed through signs and powers.

One day he encountered Anastasius, the son of a certain noble and leading citizen, who was being carried to burial. After pouring out prayer, he raised him from the dead. The restored young man began to cry: “Truly great is the God of the Christians, who has raised me through his servant.” Turning to his father, he said: “Father, until now we have wandered, for I saw the gods whom we worshiped being tormented in hell by infernal fires.”

Hearing these things, Anastasius and his whole household believed, as did the people. Forty thousand people were baptized, and the statues and idols were broken.

Maximian, who was in those regions, heard these things and commanded Erasmus to be presented before him. He asked which religion he followed. When Erasmus remained silent with his eyes raised to heaven, the tyrant ordered him slapped, saying: “Take counsel for your welfare and sacrifice to our gods.”

Erasmus asked, “To which gods?”

Maximian replied, “To most invincible Jove,” and led him into the temple where Jove’s statue stood. When Erasmus made the sign of the cross against the statue, it was reduced to dust. A dragon came out from it and killed many by infecting them with its breath, but at the saint’s command it immediately departed.

Seeing this, the people cried: “Great is the God of the Christians,” and many believed in him. Satan and his companions raged, and in the air were heard exceedingly powerful crashes and collisions, like armies fighting one another. In contrast, there was joy among the holy angels, so that voices were heard rejoicing and saying, “Glory to God in the highest.”

Maximian had those converted to Christ through Erasmus killed. He also had a glowing iron tunic fitted around Erasmus’s body. Joyfully and eagerly putting it on, Erasmus said: “We have passed through fire and water; now, God, you will lead me into refreshment.” The tunic became cold so that it inflicted upon him no mark of burning.

He immediately mocked the emperor with a rejoicing voice: “Behold, most foolish of men, you have proved that Christ’s power has commanded the flames and fires and rendered your capideos [read: lapideos, stone] gods powerless.”

Then the emperor ordered a frying pan heated and lead, pitch, resin, wax, and oil all melted together within it, and Christ’s athlete immersed in it. When placed in it, Erasmus said: “This pot furnishes me refreshment in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He remained unharmed in it for a long time.

But a certain spark leaping from the surging pan struck Maximian, who stood not far away, and afflicted him so severely that he cried out: “I burn, I burn! Erasmus, best of men, pray for me.”

Erasmus said to him: “What is it, emperor? Behold, my Lord Jesus Christ, whom every creature serves, has undone your devices, and the pain you prepared for me has fallen back upon your head. Consider how you will be able to dwell amid everlasting fires if you could not endure a tempered little flame.”

“Nevertheless, imitating the patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, who forbids returning evil for evil, we command that you arise free from pain.” That affliction immediately ceased.

The wretched Maximian, however, thinking that the injury had been inflicted upon him through magical arts, ordered Erasmus returned to prison, intending to tear him with new torments the following day. That night an angel of the Lord appeared to him, dissolved every bond, awakened him, led him from prison, and brought him to the seashore. There a small boat was found, and by divine providence he was carried into Campania, to the city of Formia.

When Maximian ordered the saint brought from prison to the torments and he was not found, he said with a laugh: “Erasmus endured a great torment, but by deciding to flee he escaped greater ones.”

When the saint who had just arrived was staying there, one day as he prayed a voice from heaven came to him: “Erasmus, good and faithful servant, who have fought the good fight and acquired the greatest fruit for me, enter into the joy of your Lord.”

Erasmus saw a shining crown descend upon him from above. Bowing his head, he said: “Lord, receive my spirit in peace.” Thus he rendered to his Creator his soul, which was seen to be whiter than snow and to penetrate the heights of heaven under angelic guidance. His body is said to rest at Gaeta, and his head is shown there.

§ VII: Aglaes and Boniface

In those times, as Vincent relates from their deeds in Book XIII of the Speculum Historiale, there was at Rome a certain noblewoman named Aglaes, daughter of Acacius, a former proconsul. Because she was very rich, she had many stewards under her, but one above all, an adulterer named Boniface, who also had carnal intercourse with her while she was without a husband.

At last, after some time, she was pierced to the heart by God’s grace. Summoning Boniface, she said: “Brother, you know in what great sins we are entangled, not considering that we must stand before God and render an account of the evils we have done. I have heard from Christians that if anyone ministers to the saints who contend for Christ, he will become their companion on the day of judgment.

“Go, therefore, to the regions of the East, where they contend for Christ, and bring us relics of the martyrs, so that by ministering to them and making houses of prayer for them, both we and many others may be saved through their holy sufferings.”

Boniface consented. He received twelve horsemen and money for obtaining the bodies of saints and ministering to the needy. As he departed, he said: “My lady Aglaes, if I find the bodies of martyrs to purchase, I shall bring them with me. But if my own body comes in the name of a martyr, will you receive it?”

Thinking that he spoke in jest, she replied: “Cast drunkenness and foolish speech from you, and go devoutly. Why do you speak in this way, when you are to carry the bodies of saints?”

As Boniface traveled, therefore, he considered that, because he was to carry the bodies of saints from there, he ought to abstain from meat and wine.

He came to the city of Tarsus and learned that athletes of Christ were contending there. He said to those he had brought with him: “Go and find lodging for us, while I go to see those whom I greatly desire.”

Going to the stadium, he saw martyrs placed in torments: one suspended upside down by the head, worn down for a very long time, with a fire spread beneath him; another stretched between four pieces of wood and tortured most grievously; another lacerated with claws; another with a stake fixed into his neck and raised from the ground; and another whose hands and feet were held behind him while he was beaten with clubs by the attendants.

[Running head: Chapter One, Folio 250.]

Approaching them, Boniface began to kiss them and to cry out in a loud voice: “Great is the God of the Christians! Great is the God of the holy martyrs! I beseech you, servants of Christ, pray for me, that I too may deserve to be found among your companions.”

Sitting at the martyrs’ feet, he embraced and kissed their chains, exhorting them to endurance. When the judge Simplicius saw him, he said: “Who is this man who behaves in this way in contempt of the gods and of me?” He ordered Boniface brought before his tribunal.

When Boniface was questioned about his condition, he freely confessed that he was a Christian and refused to sacrifice to the idols. Trannus [read: Tunc iratus iudex, Then the angry judge] had him suspended and scraped for a long time with iron claws down to the bones. Boniface remained silent, keeping his eyes upon the martyrs.

Then Trannus [read: the angry judge] ordered reeds sharpened and driven beneath the nails of his hands. Afterward he commanded molten lead to be poured into his mouth. Boniface bore everything joyfully, lifted his eyes to heaven, and cried out to the martyrs to pray for him. He suffered no injury from it.

When the crowd saw this, they cried out with tears: “Great is the God of the Christians! O Christ, Son of God, save us!” Fearing a disturbance, the judge withdrew.

At dawn on the following day, he ordered Boniface’s head immersed in a boiling cauldron filled with pitch. But an angel of the Lord descended and touched the cauldron. Its contents scattered and killed many people, but they neither distressed the saint in any way nor caused him pain.

At last the judge commanded him to be beheaded. When this was done, a great earthquake occurred, on account of which everyone cried: “Great is the God of the Christians!”

Meanwhile, Boniface’s fellow servants were looking for him. When they did not find him, they said among themselves: “He is now committing adultery or feasting in a tavern.” While searching, they met one of the officials and asked whether he had seen a Roman traveler.

He replied: “Yesterday a certain traveler was beheaded for Christ, and his body still lies there.”

They said: “The man we seek is no martyr, but a drunken adulterer.” Nevertheless, they followed the official to the place and recognized Boniface’s head and body. Weeping, they said: “Servant of God, do not remember our sin, for we have spoken so many things against you.”

They bought his body from the officials for five hundred solidi, embalmed it with spices, wrapped it in linen cloths, and returned to the city carrying it.

An angel of the Lord appeared to Aglaes and said: “Receive now as a lord the man whom you had as a servant, for through his intercessions all your sins will be forgiven.” The angel then revealed the whole matter to her.

She rose, gathered clerics and religious men, and honorably received the holy body near the city on the Latin Way, where she built a worthy church for him.

Aglaes herself renounced the world, distributed her goods to the needy, and freed her household from slavery. Serving the Lord with a few maidens, she merited such great grace from God that she expelled demons and cured various illnesses. She lived for another thirteen years in the religious habit and thus fell asleep in the Lord.

§ VIII: Saint Juliana

At the time when Maximian was emperor, there was a certain senator named Eleusius, a friend of that emperor, as Vincent relates in Book XIII of the Speculum Historiale from the deeds of Saint Juliana. Eleusius wished to betroth to himself a noble maiden named Juliana, the daughter of Africanus, who was himself a persecutor of Christians.

Juliana, filled with the greatest virtue, worshiped the true God, the Creator, with reasonable judgment. She went daily to the churches and devoted herself to prayer.

When Eleusius wished to celebrate the marriage solemnities, she said to the messengers: “Go and tell him: ‘If you believe in my God, I will accept you as my husband. But if you refuse, you will never have dominion over me.’”

On hearing this, Eleusius reported it to the maiden’s father. By blandishments and threats, her father sought to induce her to consent to the marriage. But when she refused, asserting that she was prepared for every punishment for the name of Christ, her father finally had her beaten and tortured and handed her over to her betrothed, Eleusius, prefect of the city.

When Eleusius could not draw her to consent to him by gentler words and promises unless he confessed the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit by believing in God, he had her beaten by seven soldiers succeeding one another in turn.

When they had become weary from using the rods, and because she refused to sacrifice to Diana, he had her remain suspended by her hair for seven hours. Afterward he had her whole body drenched with molten bronze and thus burned. When she suffered no injury from this, she was thrust into prison.

While there, she prayed to the Lord to send her aid. When her prayer was finished, the devil appeared to her in the form of an angel of light and said: “My beloved Juliana, the prefect is preparing other, most dreadful torments for you. Therefore, when you are brought out of prison, approach and sacrifice, so that you may be saved. I have been sent to you for this purpose, for I am an angel of God.”

Juliana prayed with tears: “Lord, do not permit me to perish, and reveal to me who it is who is urging these things upon me.”

Healed of the pains of the torments already inflicted, she seized the devil who had appeared to her and said: “Who are you, and who sent you?”

He replied: “I am Iophim the Black, one who delights in evil, loves torment, rejoices in murder, and counsels lust. I was sent by Beelzebub, who is the author of all evil.”

Juliana said to him: “Unclean spirit, how did you presume to attach yourself to Christians?”

She bound his hands behind his back with one of the iron fetters by which she herself had been bound, cast him to the ground, and beat him. When he wailed loudly and begged for mercy, Juliana said: “Confess to me what injuries you have done to mankind.”

He replied: “I have torn out the eyes of some people, broken the feet of others, cast others into the fire, and committed other things of this kind. I have done all the evils that are in the world. Yet no one except you has dared to touch me. Your virginity is armed against my servants.”

While he was saying these things to her, the prefect ordered Juliana brought out of prison and presented to him. She dragged the bound demon with her, led him through the forum, and cast him into a place of dung.

When she came into the praetorium, her face displayed the glory of fire. The frightened prefect said to her: “By what enchantments have you overcome so many torments?”

She replied: “My Lord Jesus Christ has strengthened me, but he has put you to shame and prepared eternal fire for you.”

Then the enraged prefect had an entirely iron device prepared and filled its surface with sharp swords. It was arranged so that, when she was placed upon it, she would be torn to pieces by its turning wheel. But an angel of the Lord dismantled the machine, so that she escaped from it unharmed.

Five hundred people who had been converted at this spectacle cried out: “We too worship Juliana’s God, whom you worship. Let the race of pagans perish, and let the race of Christians exult. Do what you wish, prefect; prepare torments, for we believe in no other God than the God of the Christians.”

[Running head: Eighth Title.]

When the prefect reported this to the emperor, he ordered all five hundred of them put to the sword. The prefect also commanded Saint Juliana to be cast into the fire, but an angel of the Lord appeared and extinguished it.

He then had her immersed in a boiling cauldron, which became like water tempered for a bath. But the boiling water poured out of the cauldron and killed seventy-six of the bystanders. Because of this, the prefect raged madly and ordered her punished by the sword.

As she was being led to the place of beheading, the demon whom she had tormented cried: “Do not spare her, but repay her as she deserves! She reviles the gods, injures men, and inflicted many evils upon me in a single night.”

When she looked around to learn who was speaking, the devil cried: “Woe is me, miserable creature! Perhaps she wishes to seize me again.” Immediately he fell silent and vanished.

After praying, the virgin delivered her undefiled spirit to God. The prefect himself was shipwrecked with many others not long afterward, and birds and wild beasts devoured their bodies.

§ IX: Saints Cosmas and Damian

In the same period, Cosmas and Damian suffered in the city of Aegea, as Vincent relates in Book XIII of the Speculum Historiale from their deeds. Their mother, Theodora, bore them as twins. Taught by the Holy Spirit, they practiced the art of medicine and cured every illness both in human beings and in beasts of burden. They accepted nothing from anyone, observing the saying: “Freely you have received; freely give.”

A certain matron named Palladia, abounding in wealth, had spent much upon physicians so that she might be cured of her illness, yet she had been unable to obtain relief. She was cured by the saints. She offered a certain gift to Saint Damian, clasping his feet and adjuring him by dreadful oaths to accept it as an act of devotion. He accepted it, not because he was led by greed, but lest he seem to scorn the name of the Lord by which she had adjured him.

When Cosmas learned this, he was moved by zeal for God and ordered that his body not be buried with Damian’s. But on the following night, the Lord appeared to Cosmas and excused his brother’s action because it had been done out of reverence for God.

The governor of that province was persecuting Christians to the death. Cosmas and Damian were denounced to him and, at his command, presented before him. When he asked about their condition, the saints replied: “We do not know what fortune is. By religion we are Christians, and we also have three other brothers: Leontius, Euprepius, and Antimius [read: Antimus (Anthimus)].”

He had these men brought and cast into prison. First, because Cosmas and Damian scorned sacrificing to the gods, they were beaten. Amid the very lashes, however, they sang: “We have delighted in the way of martyrdom as in all riches.”

After this, they and their other brothers were chained and cast into the sea. But an angel of the Lord immediately loosed their chains and set them unharmed upon the land.

When they were brought before Lysias, the tyrant said: “In the name of the god Adrian, I will pursue you.” At these words, demons suddenly approached and struck him violently in the face. When they would not cease, he commended himself to the saints so that they might pray for him.

They did so, and the demons vanished. Yet he remained hardened and said: “Because I was considering abandoning my gods, they became angry and struck me.”

The brothers persevered in confessing Christ and rebuked the tyrant for his blindness, so they were cast into the fire. There they were as if refreshed by dew, while a flame flung from the fire burned many of the gentiles standing nearby.

The tyrant next ordered them crucified and stoned upon their crosses. By God’s power, the stones returned upon those who threw them and stoned them instead. After this, he ordered them shot with arrows, but the discharged arrows turned back upon the archers and killed many of them without touching the saints.

At last Governor Lysias ordered them and their three other brothers beheaded, and together they reached the heavenly kingdoms.

The Christians took up their bodies for burial but hesitated to bury them together because of Cosmas’s instruction. Suddenly camelos [read: camelus, a camel] came at a swift run and addressed them in a human voice: “Men of God, you have received many signs and benefits through God’s holy martyrs. Not only you have done so, but also we beasts of burden, who have been appointed to your service. Therefore, giving thanks together with you all, I have been sent to announce to you that you must not separate the bodies of the saints but lay them together in the same tomb.”

This was done, and many miracles were performed through them after their death.

§ X: Saint Blaise, Bishop and Martyr

Vincent narrates in Book XIII of the Speculum Historiale, from the deeds of Saint Blaise, that, because he excelled in every gentleness and holiness, the Christians in the city of Sebaste in Cappadocia elected him bishop.

After accepting the episcopate, he entered a cave in a certain mountain to escape the fury of the persecution that had arisen against the faithful, and there he led the life of a hermit. Wild and most savage beasts, both healthy and sick, came to him there and did not depart until they received health and a blessing. Ravens also brought him food.

When Agricolaus, governor of the province, sent his men to hunt on that mountain, they found Saint Blaise praying, with a multitude of beasts before him. When they reported this to the governor, he judged that Christians were hiding there and sent many soldiers to seize whatever worshipers of Christ they might find.

The soldiers came to the place and said to him: “Come out; the governor summons you.”

He replied: “Welcome, sons. Now I see that the Lord has not forgotten me, for during the night the Lord said to me in a vision: ‘Rise and offer me a sacrifice,’ namely, the sacrifice of his body through martyrdom.”

As he went with them, he preached to those who met him on the way and performed many miracles. Among other things, a certain woman brought him her son, who was at the point of death because a fish bone was lodged crosswise in his throat and could be moved neither inward nor outward. Blaise prayed for him and touched his throat, and the boy was freed.

Another woman, a poor widow, wept before him and begged that her pig, which a wolf had seized, be restored to her. Smiling, Blaise said: “Do not weep; your pig will be restored to you.” This came to pass, for the wolf brought it back to her unharmed.

At last he was presented to the governor. The governor greeted him, saying: “Rejoice, Blaise, friend of the gods.”

[Running head: Chapter One, Folio 251.]

He replied: “You too may rejoice, governor, but do not call them gods. They are demons appointed to eternal fire together with those who worship them.”

The enraged governor then ordered him beaten with clubs and cast into prison. When Blaise was later brought out of prison and presented before him, the governor could not bend him to sacrifice. He therefore ordered him suspended upon a wooden frame and his flesh torn with iron combs.

As this was being done, seven Christian women devoutly collected the blood flowing from his wounds. When they were accused of the Christian faith and brought before the governor, he commanded them to adore his gods.

The holy women said: “Have them brought to the river, so that, once washed there, we may worship them more cleanly.” When the little statues of the gods had been carried to the river, the women took them and cast them into the stream, saying: “If they are gods, let them help themselves and keep from drowning.”

When the governor heard this, he angrily asked why they had deceived him by doing it. They replied: “If they were true gods, they would have foreknown what we intended to do to them and would not have permitted themselves to be sunk in the water.”

The governor had seven heated coats of mail and iron combs set before them, along with seven clean tunics. He offered them the choice either to accept the seven tunics, one for each of them, in honor of the gods, or to be clothed in the heated coats of mail.

One of the women immediately cast the tunics into the fire. The governor then ordered them suspended naked because they refused to sacrifice to the idols, and their flesh torn with iron combs.

While they endured great pains, angels came and strengthened them to persevere. The governor next ordered them taken down and cast into the fire, which was immediately extinguished. At last he had them beheaded.

After these things, Blaise was presented to him again. Seeing him immovable in the faith, the governor had him cast into a pond. After making the sign of the cross, however, he stood upon the water as upon solid rock.

He said to the gentiles: “If you have gods, display their power and come here.” Sixty-five men cast themselves into the pond in the name of their gods, and they were immediately drowned.

An angel of the Lord descended and said to Blaise: “Come out and receive the crown prepared for you by the Lord.” When he had left the pond, the governor asked: “Have you determined not to worship the gods?”

Blaise replied: “I do not worship demons.”

The governor immediately pronounced a sentence of beheading against him. Blaise prayed for those who would devoutly seek his intercession, and a voice from heaven declared that he had been heard. He was then beheaded together with two little sons of one of the seven women, who were also beheaded with him.

Their souls were seen leaving their bodies like virgins coming from their bridal chamber, shining with golden necklaces and ascending into heaven.

§ XI: Saint Dorothea

In the same period, Saint Dorothea suffered at Caesarea in Cappadocia under Governor Sapricius, as Vincent relates in the place cited above from her deeds. She was handed over to her two sisters, Christa and Callista, who had apostatized from the faith, but she converted them again. Because of their conversion, they were placed in a vat in her sight and burned.

After their suffering, Dorothea was lifted upon the rack and said: “Never in my life have I rejoiced as I do today.” At last, firm in the faith, she was led away to be beheaded.

A certain scholastic named Theophilus mockingly said to her: “Ho there, bride of Christ! Send me roses or apples from the paradise of your bridegroom.”

She replied: “I will certainly do so.”

When Dorothea had prayed, behold, a boy who appeared to be about four years old came before her carrying three excellent apples and three roses in a little basket.

She said to him: “I beseech you to carry these to Theophilus the scholastic.”

While Theophilus, laughing, was recounting the virgin’s promise to the bystanders, behold, the boy stood before him and said: “The most holy virgin Dorothea sends you what you requested and what she promised.”

Receiving them, he was immediately converted to the faith of Christ. It was the month of February when those roses were sent, and icy cold held all Cappadocia.

Theophilus was immediately suspended and tortured upon the rack. He said: “Behold, I have now been made a Christian because I am suspended upon a cross, for the construction of the rack bears a likeness to the cross.” At last he was put to death by the sword.

§ XII: Saints Vitalis and Agricola

In Italy, in the city of Bologna, Saints Vitalis and Agricola suffered five days before the Kalends of December under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, as Vincent relates in the place cited above from the words of Ambrose.

Vitalis had formerly been Agricola’s servant, but afterward he became his companion and colleague in martyrdom. When the persecutors pressed Saint Vitalis to deny Christ, he confessed Christ the Lord all the more. They exercised every kind of torment upon him, so that no place on his body was without a wound.

He prayed: “Lord Jesus Christ, command my spirit to be received, for I already desire to receive the crown that your angel showed me.” When the prayer was completed, he breathed out his spirit.

Saint Agricola had a gentler character, so that even his enemies loved him. For that reason, they delayed his suffering. But this show of honor from them was more bitter than every cruelty, because it begrudged him martyrdom. Finally, when Saint Agricola refused to comply with the persecutors, he was crucified.

At that time their bodies were placed among the tombs of the Jews. But, as Ambrose himself testifies, when the Lord revealed their bodies to him, Ambrose raised the bodies of the saints from that place and laid them in a church. Demons departing from the possessed confitebatur [read: confitebantur, confessed] this, and many miracles were then displayed in the people’s presence, with many freed from various illnesses.

Saint Gregory of Spoleto

Saint Gregory, a priest, suffered at the city of Spoleto in that period in the following manner, as Vincent relates in the Speculum Historiale, in the place cited above, from his deeds.

Flachus [read: Flaccus] had been sent there by the idolatrous emperor Maximian and was setting up all the idols. Entering the city, he ordered a tribunal prepared for him in the middle of the forum and all the citizens summoned by heralds. When they came, he said to Tirchanus: “All these people serve our gods.”

Tirchanus replied: “All of them worship Jupiter, Minerva, and Asclepius, the immortal gods who show favor to the whole world.” Hearing this, Flachus [read: Flaccus] rejoiced and dismissed everyone in peace.

In that city, however, there was a most Christian priest named Gregory, who devoted himself to fasts and prayers, performed many wonders, converted many pagans to the faith of Christ, and cast temples and idols to the ground.

When Flachus [read: Flaccus] heard this, he ordered Gregory brought before him in chains. When Gregory refused to sacrifice, Flachus [read: Flaccus] had knotted clubs brought and ordered his back broken with blows, saying: “Let the rebel against our gods and the contemner of rulers suffer these things.”

Gregory replied: “As many evils as you inflict upon my body, so many twofold blessings are bestowed upon me in heaven.”

Flachus [read: Flaccus] said: “Turn him over and shatter his belly with clubs.” When Gregory persisted in confessing the faith, Flachus [read: Flaccus] ordered his hands and feet bound and had him placed upon a grate with fire beneath it. But when Gregory prayed, the fire did not harm him, just as the fire in the furnace did not harm the three youths.

A great earthquake occurred within the city, and the royal hall fell, crushing more than a churchful of pagans who were sacrificing to idols [read: one district of Spoleto fell and crushed more than three hundred people serving idols]. Flachus [read: Flaccus] brought him back to prison in chains, but an angel appeared, all his bonds were loosed, and a light shone around him.

On the following day he was presented to Flachus [read: Flaccus]. When he would in no way comply, Flachus [read: Flaccus] ordered him beheaded. As Gregory prayed at the time of his suffering, a voice from heaven was heard: “Enter into rest, blessed one of the Lord. Your dwelling has been prepared for you.”

After Gregory had been beheaded, Flachus [read: Flaccus] exposed his body to be devoured by terrifying beasts. The beasts bent their knees and adored the holy body. When many people saw this, they cried: “Great is the God of the Christians!”

That same day, Flachus [read: Flaccus] was struck by an angel and died while vomiting out his entrails. A certain devout woman bought the holy body for thirty [read: thirty-five] gold pieces and buried it.

[Running head: Eighth Title.]

Saint Sabinus of Assisi

Moreover, during Maximian’s reign, Venustianus, the Augustalis of Tuscany, sought out Christians in hiding. He received public notice of Sabinus, bishop of Assisi, a most eloquent man.

Going there, Venustianus sat in judgment in the middle of the forum. Saint Sabinus was brought before him with his two deacons, Marcellus and Exuperantius.

Venustianus said to him: “Take thought for yourself, promise to consecrate yourself to the gods, and live.”

Sabinus replied: “If it is just for me to abandon the Creator of heaven and earth and adore stones, metals, and wood, then, so that you may know that worshiping such things is nothing, have your god brought here.”

Venustianus ordered the god that he kept in his chamber brought into the midst. It was an image of Jupiter, wonderfully fashioned from coral stone, with gilded clothing. When it had been brought with candles and great ceremony, Venustianus said: “Behold our propitiators.”

Smiling, Sabinus said: “O vain folly, that the Creator of all things should be abandoned and a most filthy stone worshiped! So that you may know it is no god, allow me to do what I wish with it.”

Venustianus replied: “If you dare, do what you wish.”

After praying, Sabinus dashed it upon the pavement and shattered it. Seeing this, Venustianus beat his forehead in anger and said: “We are ruined, and our commonwealth has been darkened.” In his rage, he immediately ordered Sabinus’s hands cut off.

When this was done, his deacons began to tremble. Sabinus strengthened them, and they cried: “Let the gods of demons perish, and let the heart of those seeking the Lord rejoice!”

For this reason, the deacons were suspended upon the rack and beaten for a long time with clubs. Next, their sides were scraped with claws, and at last they were roasted by fire. Their bodies, consumed in martyrdom, were cast into the river, then collected and buried by certain people.

Sabinus was sent to prison. A certain widow named Serena had taken his severed hands and preserved them with the greatest devotion in a glass vessel. She often visited and refreshed him in prison.

When she brought to him her blind grandson, Sabinus placed the stumps of his arms upon the boy’s eyes and prayed, and the blind boy received sight. Through this miracle, many were converted to Christ and baptized.

Afterward, an extreme pain seized Venustianus’s eyes, so that he could neither take food nor sleep, nor could he be helped by the physicians’ care. Hearing that Sabinus had restored sight to the blind boy, he ordered him brought out of prison.

When Sabinus was brought before Venustianus, who was pressed by his pains, Sabinus asked: “Do you believe ex toto toto corde [read: ex toto corde, with your whole heart]?”

Venustianus replied: “I believe, but the sin I committed against you has brought this torment upon me.”

Sabinus said: “My own sins have done this to me, but if you believe and do penance, you will be saved.”

Venustianus believed, was baptized, and was healed. When Maximian heard this, he beheaded Venustianus together with his baptized wife and children. He had Sabinus brought to Spoleto and caused him to pass to heaven by beating him with leaded scourges.

§ XIII: Saint Januarius

Under Diocletian, Saint Januarius, bishop of the city of Benevento, also suffered, according to Vincent in the Speculum Historiale in the place cited above.

When Governor Timothy heard the fame of Januarius’s teaching and life, he ordered him brought before his tribunal outside the city of Nola. He said: “Come forward and sacrifice to the gods. If you refuse, you will be torn by horrific torments, and when your God sees them, he too will become afraid.”

Januarius replied: “Be silent, wretched man, and do not inflict so great a blasphemy against the Creator of all things upon my ears, lest he strike you down.”

Enraged, Timothy cast him into prison and afterward had him thrown into a furnace whose fire had been kindled for three days. In the middle of the furnace, Januarius prayed and walked with holy angels, blessing God.

When the soldiers heard this, they reported it to the governor. The furnace was opened, and a flame belched from it and burned many unbelievers. The fire did not touch Januarius at all or cause him any pain.

When he had been brought out of the furnace, Timothy commanded that the sinews be drawn from his body. Afterward he ordered Januarius, his deacon Festus, and the reader Desiderius bound before his chariot and taken to the city of Puteoli.

There, in the sight of the people, he ordered wild beasts released from their cages to devour them. The beasts came to the saints’ feet as gently as sheep and venerated them.

At last Timothy pronounced a sentence of beheading against them. As they were led to the place, clouds fell upon the governor’s eyes and tormented him. Crying out in pain, he had Saint Januarius recalled to him and begged him to pray that his sight might be restored.

The saint prayed: “Lord, restore to this man, although he is unworthy, the sight of his eyes, for we do not repay evil for evil.” His eyes received light, because of which many people were converted to the faith.

Governor Timothy feared displeasing the emperor on account of the conversion of so great a multitude and ordered Januarius beheaded as swiftly as possible. When this was done, the governor began to cry that the angels were tormenting him because of Januarius, the servant of God, and he died after wailing for a long time. This saint’s body rests at Naples.

§ XIV: Saint Anastasia

In that period, Saint Anastasia also suffered, according to Vincent in the place cited above, from her deeds. She was the daughter of Praetextatus, a most illustrious man in the city of Rome.

[Running head: Chapter One, Folio 252.]

Because Anastasia was so powerful through her wealth and the nobility of her lineage that she could have no equal among the matrons, after becoming a Christian she clothed herself in the meanest attire.

With only a single maiden as her companion, she went about the prisons where the soldiers of Christ were held. She could not otherwise visit them unless, in common clothing, she pretended to be a poor woman. She was very diligent in washing the feet of those imprisoned for God’s name, anointing their heads, and combing the hair that their long confinement had caused to grow.

When she did this continually and it came to the attention of her jealous and unbelieving husband, Publius, he became indignant. He appointed talis [read: tales, such] guards over his house that they did not permit her even to look toward the entrance of any little window. He had her guarded most closely and denied her food so that, once she had perished, he might indulge himself amid her very extensive possessions.

Thinking that she was about to die, she sent letters to Saint Chrysogonus. He had been a man of great dignity in the emperor’s court and a secret Christian, and he had converted Anastasia to the faith. When his Christianity was discovered, he had been put in chains before Anastasia was recognized as a Christian by her husband. Anastasia visited him and sustained him with the necessities of life.

She therefore sent a letter through a certain woman to Chrysogonus in these words:

“To Chrysogonus, holy confessor of Christ, from Anastasia. I have taken upon myself the yoke of a sacrilegious husband, whose marriage bed, through God’s mercy, I have avoided under the pretext of illness. Day and night I embrace the footsteps of my Lord Jesus Christ.

“But while my husband drains my patrimony, from which he is enriched, together with base idolaters, he has consigned me, as though I were a sorceress and a sacrilegious woman, to the most severe custody, so that I expect to lose my temporal life. Although I glory in that death, my mind is nevertheless greatly broken because the resources I had vowed to God are being consumed by the base. Farewell, man of God, and remember me.”

Chrysogonus replied: “See that you are not disturbed because adversities are inflicted upon you while you live piously, for you are not being rejected but tested. Christ will soon turn the time to one pleasing to you [a read: ad], and as though after the darkness of night you will behold the flowering light of dei [read: diei, day]; after the cold of ice, golden and serene seasons will follow for you. Farewell in the Lord, and pray for me.”

When her husband confined her still more closely and allowed her only a little food, she again wrote to Chrysogonus in these words: “The end of my body has come. Remember me, so that he for whose love I endure these things, which you will learn from the mouth of this old woman, may himself receive my departing soul.”

He wrote back: “Darkness always precedes light. So too, health returns after weakness, and life after death is again promised. By one ending both the adversities and the prosperity of this world are shut out, so that neither despair from sorrows nor elation from joys may rule. But you, O servant of Christ, embrace the trophy of the cross with your whole mind and prepare yourself for God’s work.”

Meanwhile, Anastasia’s husband was sent by the emperor to remote places. He died before returning, and Anastasia, freed from the aforesaid custody, devoted herself to almsgiving among the faithful.

Afterward, when Diocletian was stationed in the regions of Aquileia, he had many Christians killed. He ordered certain men of noble birth and of prefectural or consular dignity sent to him from Rome, especially Saint Chrysogonus. Anastasia also went there so that she might serve those imprisoned for Christ and assist them from her resources.

The emperor urged Chrysogonus to sacrifice to the gods and recover the dignity of a prefect. Chrysogonus freely replied: “I adore one God in heaven, and I scorn your dignities as mud.” Sentence was passed, and he was beheaded. A priest named Zoilus buried him.

Anastasia had three servant girls, sisters who were most beautiful, named Agape, Chionia, and Irene. They were Christians, and when they did not obey the prefect’s warning, he had them shut in a chamber where the kitchen utensils were kept.

Burning with desire for them, the prefect entered to exercise his lust. But, turned to madness, he believed that he was handling the virgins while he embraced and kissed cauldrons, dishes, pots, and similar objects. When he had satisfied himself with these things, the virgins remaining untouched and in prayer, he went outside utterly black and deformed.

The servants who were waiting for him saw him thus fitted out. Thinking that he had been turned into a demon, they beat him and then fled, leaving him alone. When he went to the emperor, he complained that some people struck him with rods, others spat in his face, and others threw mud and dust upon him, because they believed he had gone mad.

His eyes were restrained so that he could not see how deformed he was. He therefore wondered greatly why everyone who had previously held him in such honor now mocked him. It seemed to him that both he and everyone else were clothed in white garments.

When others informed him of his deformity, he thought the virgins had done it to him by magic. He ordered them stripped in his presence so that he might at least see them naked. But by God’s power their garments adhered so firmly to their bodies that they could not be stripped in any way. At last, because they would by no means consent to sacrifice, they were crowned with martyrdom.

Returning to Rome, Anastasia was handed over by the emperor to a certain priest of the Capitol named Ulpian, who wished to have her as his wife. Neither the many blandishments and ornaments he offered to bend her nor the threats of punishment he employed to terrify her could move her in any way. Neither he himself nor the women sent to persuade her for three days could make her sacrifice and thus become his wife.

When he led her into the bedchamber and wished to embrace her, he was struck blind. Going to the gods, he asked whether he could escape. They answered: “Because you have grieved Anastasia, you have been handed over to us, and from now on you will be tormented with us forever in hell.” As he returned home, he died in the hands of his servants.

Anastasia was then handed over to another prefect to be kept in custody. When he heard that she possessed limitless estates from her patrimony, he said to her: “If you wish to be a Christian, do what your God commands. He commands that whoever does not renounce everything he possesses cannot be his disciple. Therefore give me everything you have, go wherever you wish, and you will be a perfect Christian.”

Anastasia replied: “My Lord admonishes me to sell everything and give it to the poor, not to the rich. Since you are rich, I would act against God’s command if I gave you anything.”

Saint Anastasia was then consigned to a harsh prison to be tormented by hunger, but Saint Theodora, who had already been crowned through martyrdom, fed her with heavenly food for two months.

At last she was taken with many others who had converted to the faith to the Palmaria Islands, where many had been exiled for Christ’s name. After some days, the prefect had all those Christians summoned before him. He burned Anastasia with fire while she was bound to stakes, and he killed the others with various torments.

Among them was one man who had repeatedly been stripped of great riches and always said: “At least you will not take Christ from me.” Anastasia suffered about the year of the Lord 280 [read: 287].

That Saint Theodora who had appeared to Anastasia in prison had been known and familiar to her. After the death of her first husband, she had been handed to a certain count as a wife so that he might receive her possessions and wealth. When she refused to sacrifice, he condemned her and her three sons to the fire. Thus she passed to the Lord with her sons.

[Running head: Eighth Title.]

§ XV: Saint Barbara

Vincent relates in the place cited above, from her deeds, that Barbara was a virgin of noble birth from Nicomedia. Because of her exceptional beauty, her father placed her in a lofty tower so that access to her could not easily be obtained, fearing that she might become a Christian.

Taught by the Holy Spirit, she nevertheless adored the God of heaven. While she was there, water was divinely provided through her prayer, and she baptized herself in it.

This was certainly done above the common law of the Church, by a special privilege of him who has not bound his power to the sacraments in such a way that, when he wishes, he cannot sanctify a person without the sacraments. Under the common law, however, it is certain that no one can baptize himself, nor is such a person baptized. This is in the Decretals, “On Baptism,” chapter Debitum.

When her father, also at the suggestion of friends, wished to give her in marriage, she refused, saying: “Let this be far from me, father, for I have in heaven Christ as my bridegroom, who guards my body inviolate.”

Understanding that she was a Christian, her father seized a sword to kill her, but she hid herself. Afterward, when he found her, he brought her to the governor and informed him that she had become a Christian.

When the governor could not bend her to the worship of the gods, he ordered her stripped and beaten with rods. Amid the blows, she sang psalms, scorning the senseless and vain idols.

He next ordered her suspended head downward and her head struck with iron hammers, so that blood dripped copiously from her nostrils. On the following day, the governor saw that she was healed. He had her suspended upon the rack and burning lamps applied to her sides.

Tormented, she said to the tyrant: “See, wretch, that this fire affords me not pain but refreshment.”

Filled with rage, the governor ordered her breasts cut off and had her led naked through the whole countryside. But as she prayed, an angel of the Lord clothed her in a white garment so that she would not be seen naked, and he healed her.

At last the governor pronounced a sentence of death against her, and Barbara’s own father cut off her head with his own hands. Afterward, as he descended from the place of beheading, fire came down from heaven and consumed him to dust.

Saint Eulalia

At that same time, namely during Diocletian’s reign, the virgin Eulalia, noble and wealthy by birth, suffered at the city of Mérida in Spain under Governor Dacian.

When she was twelve years old, she scorned the games and delights of the world. Once the persecution had begun, she wished of her own accord to rebuke the governor, but her parents hid her in a country house they possessed far from the city.

At night she opened the doors and secretly departed. Accompanied by an angelic choir, she intercarpere cepit [read: inde per invia carpit iter, then made her way through trackless places] filled with thorns and brambles. Her feet were lacerated by the brambles and thorns through which she ran, but she reached the city.

In the morning she approached the judge’s tribunal and began to cry aloud in its midst: “What madness is it to prostrate hearts before hewn rocks and deny God, the Father of all? Isis, Apollo, and Venus are nothing; Maximian himself is nothing. He is the lord of wealth and the servant of stones. Why does he who is a good general and an excellent judge, who feeds upon innocent blood, strike noble hearts?”

Provoked to fury by such words, the praetor ordered the executioner to seize her headlong and overwhelm her with torments. Yet, wishing to recall her to the worship of the gods, he said: “Consider, grim maiden, what great joys you are losing, you whom gemmalis [read: genialis, marital] honor awaits. Why will you die in tender youth, when you are near to dowries and the marriage bed?”

She answered nothing. Fuming in spirit, she spat into the tyrant’s eyes, scattered the images, and trampled underfoot the sacrificial cake and the incense vessels that had been set before her.

Immediately the executioners tore her virginal breast. Claws struck both her sides and cut to the bones. Eulalia then cried: “Scribis mihi hi domine [read: See, Lord, you are being written upon me]. Behold how it pleases me to read these characters, which proclaim your trophies, O Christ.”

Burning lamps were applied to her sides. While she sang joyfully and fearlessly, without weeping or groaning, the lamps raged on every side against her stomach and flanks. The flying flame modestly concealed the virgin’s nakedness, flew toward her face, enveloped her head, and rose above its summit.

Desiring a swift death, the virgin drank the fire into her mouth. Then a shining dove, whiter than snow, was seen to leave her mouth and seek heaven. As her soul departed, the pyre died, and peace was given to her lifeless limbs.

As Vincent says in the place cited above, her feast is recorded twice in the martyrology, unless perhaps there were two women who suffered in the same province and in the same persecution.

§ XVI: Saint Euphemia

At about that time, blessed Euphemia also seems to have suffered in the city of Chalcedon. She was a senator’s daughter. In Diocletian’s time, seeing Christians torn by such diverse torments, she hurried to the judge. Publicly confessing Christ, she also encouraged men by the example of her constancy.

When the judge killed Christians one after another, he made others stand by so that, at least through terror, they would sacrifice. Their steadfastness stirred Euphemia still more, and she cried that she was suffering an injury from the judge.

The judge rejoiced at this statement, thinking that she wished to offer sacrifice to the gods, and asked: “What injury is being done to you?”

She replied: “Since I am of noble birth, why do you set unknown foreigners before me and make them the first to reach Christ?”

She was confined in prison and brought back to the judge on the following day with others in chains, while she herself was unbound. Again she complained most gravely that, contrary to the emperors’ laws, she alone was being spared chains. For this, she was beaten with slaps for a very long time and cast into prison.

The judge followed her, wishing to overpower her through lust, but divine power restrained his hand as she resisted. He then sent his chief officer to her, promising him many things if he made her consent. But the officer could neither open the locked prison with keys nor break it with axes. At last a demon seized him, and he scarcely escaped while tearing at himself.

Euphemia was then placed upon a wheel so that her whole body might be torn apart. The artisan arranged the device to produce a certain sound as a signal for the attendants to pull. By God’s command a tool fell and made the sound prematurely; the attendants pulled, and the wheel crushed the artisan himself completely to pieces, while Euphemia remained unharmed upon the wheel.

[Running head: Chapter One, Folio 253.]

The artisan’s relatives then lamented and wished to burn Euphemia upon the wheel by setting a fire beneath it. But the wheel was burned, while Euphemia, freed by an angel, was seen standing in a certain lofty place.

Apollianus said to the judge: “The power of the Christians is conquered only by iron. Therefore, I advise you to have her beheaded.”

Ladders were raised. When a certain man wished to stretch out his hand to seize her, his whole body immediately became paralyzed, and he was scarcely brought down from there half alive.

Another man named Sosthenes approached to seize her, but he was suddenly changed by divine power. He begged her pardon, drew his sword, and cried to the judge that he should kill him instead of touching the woman whom angels were defending.

The judge then descended from that place and commanded his secretary to summon to her all the lustful young men, who were to mock her until she failed from exhaustion. But the secretary entered, saw many most radiant virgins around her, and was immediately made a Christian through her admonitions.

Afterward the governor had her suspended by her hair. When she remained immovable, he denied her food and had her thrust back into prison so that on the seventh day she might be crushed like an olive between four great stones.

She was fed daily by an angel. On the seventh day, when she had been placed between the stones, they were reduced through her prayer to the finest ash.

Ashamed that he had been defeated by one girl, the governor ordered her cast into a pit where there were three most savage beasts to devour her. They immediately ran to her with caresses and, binding their tails to one another as though preparing a seat for her, confounded the judge still more.

When the judge was nearly dying from distress, a certain man, wishing to avenge his lord’s injury, seized a sword and thrust it through Euphemia’s side. Thus he made her a martyr of Christ.

The judge clothed that agent of wickedness in a silk garment as a reward and placed a golden collar around him. But as he departed, a lion seized and completely devoured him, so that scarcely a few of his bones were found together with the torn garment.

Both Jews and gentiles honored Euphemia after she had been buried with honor, and many believed in Christ.

§ XVII: Saint Christina

About the year of the Lord 287, under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, blessed Christina suffered at Tyre. Born of most noble parents, she was placed by her father in a certain tower with twelve maidservants. Her father had placed golden and silver idols there.

Because she was most beautiful and many sought her in marriage, her parents, unwilling to give her to anyone in marriage, intended that she should remain a virgin in the worship of the gods. Taught by the Holy Spirit, however, she abhorred the idols and hid in a window the incense intended for sacrifice to the gods.

When her father came to her, the maidservants said to him: “Your daughter, our mistress, despises our gods, asserting that she is a Christian.” Her father gently urged her to worship the gods.

She said: “Do not call me your daughter, but the daughter of him to whom a sacrifice of praise is fitting.”

Her father said: “My daughter, do not offer sacrifice to only one god, lest the others become angry with you.”

She replied: “You have spoken well, though without knowing the truth. I offer sacrifice to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

Her father said: “If you worship three gods, why not others as well?”

Christina replied: “Those three are one divinity.”

After this, Christina broke the golden and silver gods and secretly distributed their material to the poor. When her father returned and asked for the gods so that he might adore them, the servants told him that Christina had destroyed them and distributed them to the poor.

Her enraged father ordered her stripped and beaten by twelve men, so severely that the attendants themselves became exhausted. Christina said to her father: “Dishonorable, shameless, and abominable to God, the men beating me have become exhausted. Ask your gods, if you can, to give them strength.”

He then ordered her chained and cast into prison. When her mother heard this, she tore her garments, went to the prison, prostrated herself at her daughter’s feet, and said: “My daughter Christina, light of my eyes, have mercy upon me.”

Christina replied: “Why do you call me your daughter? Do you not know that I bear the name of my God, namely Christ?”

When her mother could persuade her of nothing, she returned to her husband and reported what Christina had answered. Her father then ordered her brought before his tribunal and said: “Sacrifice to the gods. Otherwise, you will be afflicted with many torments and will not be called my daughter.”

She replied: “You have shown me great favor, for now you no longer call me the devil’s daughter.”

Her father ordered her scraped with claws and her tender limbs torn apart. Christina took pieces of her own flesh and cast them into her father’s face, saying: “Take, tyrant, and eat the flesh you begot.”

Her father then placed her upon a wheel and set fire mixed with oil beneath it, but a flame leaping out killed fifteen hundred people. Her father attributed all these things to magic and had her cast into prison again.

When night came, he ordered his attendants to cast her into the sea with a great stone bound to her neck. When this was done, angels immediately took her up. Christ descended to her and baptized her in the sea, saying: “I baptize you in God my Father, and in me, Jesus Christ his Son, and in the Holy Spirit.” He entrusted her to the archangel Michael, who brought her back to land.

When her father heard this, he beat his forehead and said: “By what sorceries do you do this, that you exercise them even in the sea?”

She replied: “Foolish and wretched man, I received this grace from Christ.”

He ordered her returned to prison so that he might have her beheaded on the following day, but that night her father Urbanus was found dead.

A certain wicked judge named Dion succeeded him. He had an iron cauldron prepared, heated with oil, pitch, and resin, and ordered Christina cast into it. Placed within it, she praised God and suffered no injury.

The enraged judge ordered her head shaved and had her led naked through the city to the idol of Apollo. At her command, the idol suddenly collapsed, was shattered, and was reduced to dust. When the judge heard this, he was terrified and gave up his spirit.

A certain man named Julian succeeded him. He had a furnace kindled and Christina cast into it. She remained unharmed for five days, walking and singing in it with angels.

Julian then attributed this to magic and had two asps, two vipers, and two snakes sent against her. They caressed her and licked her sweat. He ordered a certain enchanter to provoke those beasts. When he did so, the serpents attacked and killed him.

Christina commanded the serpents to go to a deserted place, and she raised the dead man. Trajan [read: Julian] then ordered her breasts cut off; when this was done, milk flowed instead of blood. Afterward, when her tongue was cut out, she did not lose her speech.

At last Julian shot two arrows into her heart and one into her side. Thus, with the palm of martyrdom, she ascended gloriously to heaven.

Her baptism is marvelous, yet it is neither incredible nor impossible for God, because he can do all things and can justify people above the common law. Nevertheless, Vincent says in the Speculum Historiale that this should be piously believed.

[Running head: Eighth Title.]

§ XVIII: Saint Afra and Bishop Narcissus

At the same time when Diocletian raged madly against the Christians in Crete [read: the province of Rhaetia], Bishop Narcissus arrived in the city of Augusta. Not knowing where to enter as a fugitive, he went into the house of a prostitute named Afra, as Vincent relates in the Speculum Historiale, in the place cited above, from his deeds.

Narcissus entered with his deacon Felix. When Afra saw the respectable men who had arrived, she thought they were unchaste. She prepared supper and everything she was accustomed to prepare in the usual manner with the three girls she kept with her.

When the bishop came to take food, he began to pray and sing psalms. Hearing and seeing things she had never heard before, Afra was overcome with amazement and began to ask who he was. She learned that he was a bishop of the Christians, immediately fell at his feet, and said: “Lord, I am unworthy, and no woman more shameful than I can be found in this city.”

Bishop Narcissus replied: “Our Savior could not be defiled when touched by the most shameful woman; instead, his holiness washed and cleansed every stain. The sun too casts its light around sewers and muddy waters without defiling itself. Therefore, daughter, receive within yourself the light of faith, so that you may be purified from every sin and, once the demon has been driven away, rejoice in your entrance into everlasting brightness.”

When she reported his words to her girls, they replied: “You are our mistress. If we followed you into the defilements of crimes, why would we not follow you to the forgiveness of sins?” They were named Digna, Eumenia, and Euprepia.

The bishop and his deacon passed the whole night praying and singing psalms, and he had Afra and her girls as companions in doing so.

In the morning, when she was asked where the men who had entered her house were, she replied that they had gone away to sacrifice. Then she went to her mother and said: “A Christian bishop came to me, not knowing where he might go. Throughout the whole night he stretched his hands toward his God and made us pray with him.

“Around cockcrow, when the lamp went out and I could not relight it, the bishop said: ‘Come, my light from heaven; display your face, and we shall be saved.’ A light like the sun came from heaven, together with thunder. It did not withdraw, but remained until dawn began. When he finished his prayer, he made us answer, ‘Amen.’ The brilliant light gradually withdrew from our eyes.

“On the following day, those who were plotting against him showed themselves to me so that they might seize and kill him when he left. But I hid the men where I keep bundles of flax, fearing that the place might be searched. If you command it, mother, I shall arrange for them to come here, because he promised that I would become a Christian and that my sins would be erased.”

Her mother joyfully replied: “May God grant that the same thing also happen to me.”

When evening came, Saint Narcissus, at Afra’s request, moved to her mother’s house. Rejoicing, her mother held his feet for three hours, beseeching him to have her too cleansed from her sins.

He prescribed a fast of seven days and ordered them to explain plainly what they had worshiped. Hilaria, Afra’s mother, replied: “My parents were Cypriots by birth and came from there with the rites of Venus. Venus cannot be worshiped except by women who have become prostitutes.

“Therefore, consecrating my daughter to the rites of Venus, I permitted her to remain in a brothel as though she were servitium [read: servituram, one who would serve] the goddess Venus and would please her by prostitution. I believed Venus would consequently favor me if I occupied my daughter with imitations of her divinity. For the more lovers a woman who serves Venus can have, the more fortunate the priests of Venus declare that she is able to please Venus.”

Hearing this, the man of God Narcissus groaned and shed tears. He said to Felix his deacon: “Rise, brother, and let us lament over such worship. Let us ask the Lord that where iniquity has abounded, grace too may abound.”

When they had prayed, a certain Egyptian appeared, blacker than a raven, naked, and covered over his whole body with elephantine sores. He began to bellow and say: “O holy Narcissus, what have you to do with my house? What have you to do with my servant girls, whom I have always had in my family? Your God loves clean souls and clean bodies. These women are mine and cannot belong to another.”

Saint Narcissus said to him: “Tell me, condemned creature, do you know that my Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth was seized, scourged, fastened to a cross, died, was buried, and rose on the third day? Do you know that this happened?”

The devil replied: “Would that I were permitted not to know it, for at the hour when he was crucified, our prince was bound with fiery chains.”

Narcissus said: “What sin did my Lord commit that he should suffer so much?”

The demon replied: “He suffered not for his own sins, but for those of others.”

The saint said: “Depart, therefore, from these women, because my Lord also suffered for those who run to his faith and grace.”

The devil said: “Order me to remain here tonight.”

The bishop replied: “If you can remain, remain.”

Then the demon emitted the most dreadful howl in a harsh voice and never appeared again.

Earlier, however, the devil had begged the holy bishop: “Have pity upon me and give me at least one soul in my power.”

Narcissus replied: “Swear to me in God’s name that you will immediately kill the soul I give you.”

The devil said: “I swear by him who conquered us together with our prince.”

The bishop said: “Go, then, to the spring near the Julian Alps. Neither a person nor any other animal can drink its water because a dragon dwells there and kills with its breath everyone who approaches. Kill it and bring its soul under your power.”

The devil cried out: “O lying bishop! Besides everything else, he has bound me by an oath to kill my friend, and if I do not kill him, he also forces me to go into the abyss.”

The demon departed and killed the dragon, and the water of the spring became drinkable.

For several days, Narcissus instructed the women in the doctrine of the faith. He baptized Hilaria the mother with her daughter Afra, Afra’s three girls, and all their loved ones.

Hilaria made her house into a church, and Zozimus, Afra’s maternal uncle, was ordained priest there.

[Running head: Chapter One, Folio 254.]

At last, after nine months, Narcissus departed for Spain. After he had won much people for God over three years, he afterward attained the glory of martyrdom with Felix.

After this, when a persecution arose in Crete [read: Rhaetia], Saint Afra was brought before the judge as a worshiper of Christ and was ordered either to offer sacrifices to the gods or to endure various torments.

Afra said: “The sins I committed while ignorant of God are enough for me. What you command I will never do. I have Jesus Christ before my eyes. Because I am not worthy to sacrifice to him, I desire to be sacrificed for his name, so that the body in which I sinned may be cleansed after suffering punishments for a long time.”

The judge said to her: “As I hear, you are a prostitute. Sacrifice, therefore, because you are estranged from your God.”

She replied: “My Lord Jesus Christ said that he descended from heaven to earth for sinners. The Gospel also testifies that a prostitute watered his feet with her tears and received pardon, and that he ate and drank with publicans without despising them.”

The judge further said: “Sacrifice to the gods so that you may be loved by many lovers and great riches may be conferred upon you.”

She replied: “I never receive accursed money. Even what I had, because it did not come from a good conscience, I spent by distributing it to the poor, so that the poor might pray to the Lord for me.”

Then the most wicked judge dictated the sentence: “We command that Afra, a public prostitute who has professed herself a Christian and refused to take part in the sacrifices of the gods, be burned alive.”

The attendants immediately seized her and led her to an island in the river called the Lech. They stripped her and bound her to a stake.

Lifting her eyes to heaven, she prayed: “Lord Jesus Christ, who came to call not the just but sinners to repentance, accept my repentance in this hour of my suffering, so that through this bodily fire prepared for me you may free me from the eternal fire that burns soul and body.”

The fire was lit and she was cast into it. She was heard saying: “I give you thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, who have deigned to receive me as a sacrifice for your name.” Thus she breathed out her spirit.

When her mother Hilaria and the three servant girls Digna, Eumenia, and Euprepia—her companions first in shame and afterward in conversion—heard this, they went to the island. They took Afra’s intact body and placed it in a tomb at the second milestone from the city of Augusta.

When this was reported to the judge, he sent attendants there to induce them to sacrifice with flattering words, or to kill them if they refused. When they came and the women entirely refused, they gathered a great quantity of wood around them beside the tomb, set fire beneath it, and departed. Thus they were all consecrated by martyrdom.

§ XIX: Saint Genesius

At the same time, the martyr Genesius suffered at Rome, as Vincent relates in Book XIII of the Speculum Historiale from his deeds. He was a master of the art of mimicry in the city.

One day he wished to present Emperor Diocletian with a play about the mysteries of Christian observance. For this purpose, while all the people and the emperor watched, he lay in the middle of the theater as though ill and demanded to be baptized. As part of the mime, he burst forth with these words: “Ah, how heavy I feel! I wish to become light.”

His companions in the play answered: “Surely we are not carpenters, about to send you to the plane?” These words stirred the people to laughter.

Visited by the Lord, Genesius said: “Madmen, I desire to die a Christian.”

They asked: “Why?”

He replied: “So that on that day I may be found like a fugitive [read: a fugitive in God].”

Diocletian heard this and could not restrain his laughter. Then, just as had been arranged, they had an exorcist and a priest enter. Sitting beside his bed, they said: “Why did you send for us, little son?”

No longer in pretense or falsehood, but from a pure heart, he replied: “Because I desire to obtain Christ’s grace, through which I may be reborn and freed from the ruin of my iniquities.”

When they had completed the sacramental mysteries and he had been clothed in white garments, soldiers seized him as though in play. In imitation of the saints, he was presented to the emperor to be examined concerning Christ’s name. But when he had been brought to a false suffering, he came to a true confession.

Ascending the pedestal where a statue of Venus stood, he addressed them in this manner:

“Listen, emperor, and all the army, the wise men, and the people of this city. I always abhorred the Christian name, mocked those who remained in its confession, and stirred up the fury of the people against them. I cursed my parents and relatives because of the name Christian. I held Christians in such great derision that I diligently investigated their secret mysteries, not so that I might believe, but so that I might present you with a play and laughter concerning them.

“But as soon as this water was poured over me while I was naked in your sight, and when I was asked whether I believed and answered that I did, I saw a hand coming from heaven above me. I saw angels of God, radiant with a fiery appearance, standing beside me. They read out from a written book all the crimes I had committed from my youth and said to me: ‘This water wipes away all those things you acknowledge having done.’

“When I had been baptized, the book too became whiter than snow, so that no trace of writing appeared upon it. Thus, while I desired to please you earthly emperors, I pleased the heavenly King; and while I strove to draw laughter from everyone, I gave the angels cause to rejoice.

“Now, therefore, emperor and all you people, just as in your unbelief you laughed through ignorance at these holy mysteries, so cease this mockery with me. Believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true God, that he is the true light, truth, holiness, and salvation, and that through him you can attain forgiveness.”

The emperor, inflamed with fury, ordered all who had devised the play with Genesius brought before him and beaten severely with rods, thinking that they too believed in the same manner.

They began to blaspheme the holy name, saying reproachfully: “We devised the matter otherwise. This man has gone mad, abandoned his own merriment, and assumed the mourning of Christianity. Therefore, let him alone answer for what he alone has done.”

Raging against Genesius, the emperor ordered him beaten with clubs in the people’s sight. He handed him over to Prefect Plusianus [read: Plautianus], commanding that he be forced to sacrifice.

Placed by him upon the rack and urged to placate the king by sacrificing, Genesius said: “Truly, the king is the one whom I saw seeking heaven. Therefore I bewail my misery, because I previously erred with you and came too late to adore the true King.”

Plusianus [read: Plautianus] said: “And who is this king besides our king?”

Genesius replied: “Your king is a man who rules through the uncertain regions of the earth and for a fixed time. But the King whom I worship is God. He rules in heaven and over the whole earth and sea, and rules without end.”

After he had remained upon the rack for a long time, been torn with claws, and burned with lamps, he persisted in the holy confession and said to the judge: “If you multiply these torments a hundredfold upon me, you will not be able to take Christ from my mouth and heart.”

When all these things were reported to the emperor, he ordered Genesius killed. Thus, with joy, he merited the crown of martyrdom by beheading on the eighth day before the Kalends of September.

[Running head: Eighth Title.]

§ XX: The Wondrous Marriage of Julian and Basilissa

Vincent relates in Book XIII of the Speculum Historiale the wondrous marriage of Julian and Basilissa. Blessed Julian loved chastity from childhood and scorned the delights of the world.

When he was about eighteen years old, his parents urgently exhorted him to take a wife through whom he might preserve his lineage and escape the falls of youth. He answered: “What you urge lies within the power of my Lord, to whom I have committed myself. Therefore I ask for a respite of seven days, and I shall answer according to what the Lord inspires in me.”

Persevering day and night in prayer and fasting, he asked the Lord not to let him violate his promised virginity for any reason.

On the night of the seventh day, after he had surrendered his body, worn down by vigils and fasts, to sleep, an angel of the Lord appeared and said: “Act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened.”

Strengthened by these words, he left his chamber. Removing his parents’ sorrow with a joyful face, he said: “Behold, I shall do as you desire.”

A maiden was therefore sought who was wealthy and equal in nobility of birth, named Basilissa, herself the only child of her parents. The appointed wedding day came. The neighbors were invited, the streets were adorned with silks, and everyone’s ears were delighted by the sounds of musicians and the songs of virgins, so that even a man of iron would have been dissolved by sensual pleasure.

Amid these things, the bride, laden with gems and gold, was brought out of the bridal chamber. The young man joyfully entered the chamber with the maiden. When he had prayed, the room was filled with such an odor that the virgin seemed to herself to stand in a place where lilies and roses flourished.

She said to the young man: “I perceive a wondrous thing. Although it is winter, the fragrance of roses and lilies so ministers to me that, satisfied by them, I now shrink from the union of the marriage bed.”

Julian replied: “The fragrance that has appeared to you is the Lord Jesus Christ, lover of chastity, who gives eternal life to those who preserve bodily integrity.”

She said: “What salvation is better than to acquire eternal life by preserving virginity? Because I believe it is as you say, I desire to agree with you so that I may possess the eternal bridegroom.”

Julian then fell down in prayer, clung to the pavement, and cried: “Confirm in us, O God, what you have wrought, Lord.” Seeing this, the virgin did the same.

Suddenly the foundations of the chamber were shaken and an ineffable light flashed forth. On one side sat the eternal King with a multitude clothed in white; on the other was a multitude of virgins, over whom the glorious Virgin Mary held primacy.

From Julian’s side [read: from the King’s side] it was proclaimed: “You have conquered, Julian, you have conquered.” From the virgin’s side [read: from the Queen’s side] it was proclaimed: “Blessed are you, Basilissa, who have consented to saving admonitions.”

A book written in golden letters was shown to Julian, and he was told: “Come forward and read.” Julian began to read: “Let Julian, who has scorned the world for love of me, be numbered among those who have not been defiled with women. Let Basilissa, who has been joined to him with a whole heart, be numbered among those virgins over whom the Virgin Mary holds primacy.”

Thousands upon thousands standing there said: “Amen.” When the vision was withdrawn, Julian and Basilissa rejoiced in the Lord and passed the rest of the night awake in hymns and songs.

Why say more? They began to bear fruit in spirit, not in flesh, and two burning lamps were set upon a lofty lampstand. The King supplied eternal oil to them, and through them poured the doctrine of the fiery word into the ignorant.

No one could count the multitudes of souls who passed to the Lord through Saint Julian. Basilissa likewise sent to heaven companies of virgins and the chaste souls of women.

During the times of Diocletian and Maximian, when the fury of persecution bore down upon them, they devoted themselves to fasting and weeping and poured forth these prayers before the Lord:

“Lord God almighty, who know secrets, do not permit the integrity of your flock to be violated by the insatiable wolf. Grant, Lord, that you may set before yourself, undefiled, all whom you have made to serve you through us, so that we may exult and say: ‘Behold us and the children whom you gave us; none of them has perished.’”

On the following night, the Lord addressed Basilissa in a vision: “Basilissa, worthy of your name, it pleases me to fulfill what you have asked, so that while you are still alive you may send ahead to the heavenly kingdoms all the vessels you have purified for me. You will have half the allotted time in which to gather the wheat from every place where you sowed it. Once the harvest has been stored, you yourself will follow. Julian, however, will fight and conquer as a good athlete.”

After hearing this, she related everything to Julian. She gathered the virgins, explained the revealed limit to them, and diligently admonished them to make profession.

As she continued speaking at length, the place where they were was shaken, a light flashed forth, and a written inscription appeared: “Come, all of you, to the rewards prepared for you.”

Thus, within the promised time, all the virgins, about one thousand in number, passed to God. Afterward, appearing clothed in snow-white robes, they said to Basilissa as she prayed: “Behold, we await you, so that with you we may adore the Lord to whom you won us.”

Summoned by the Lord, she herself rested in peace, and Julian buried her devoutly. These things took place at Antioch, which is the metropolis of Syrian Mesopotamia.

As the force of the persecution increased, that city was compelled by order of Governor Marcianus to have each person erect an image of Caesar in his house.

When the governor heard of Julian’s faith and learned that he had many companions, he ordered his assessor to go to the place where Julian devoted himself to God with a multitude of ministers of the Church and of the faithful, men who withdrew from the fury of persecution but were nevertheless prepared to suffer unto death.

Julian said to the holy congregation: “Now, brothers, let us pray, because the persecutors are approaching.”

The governor’s assessor entered and said: “I think it cannot be unknown to you, Julian, that the decrees of the sacred rulers require there to be one worship of the gods among all people.”

Julian replied: “Let those who serve them hear the rulers’ commands. We, however, who have a King in heaven, do not obey an earthly ruler.”

When the assessor reported this to the governor, he ordered Julian presented to him and all the rest consumed by fire in that same place. This was done, and such grace was conferred upon that place that those passing by heard a multitude singing psalms there, and those who approached in sickness departed healthy.

[Running head: Chapter One, Folio 255.]

When Julian was presented to the governor, Marcianus himself said: “You are Julian, a rebel against the commands of the rulers and defiant toward the gods, who gathers crowds of innocent people to yourself by magical arribus [read: artibus, arts].”

He replied: “It is manifest that the gods whom you worship are demons, which can destroy their worshipers but cannot free them.”

The governor, drunk with fury, cried to his attendants: “Stretch him out for blows and shatter all his limbs with knotted clubs.”

While this was being done, one of those beating him, a soldier of Caesar, lost an eye from a blow.

Hearing this, Marcianus said with a snarl: “Your magic art has grown so strong that you feel nothing and tear out the eyes of others.”

Julian replied: “O horrid and blind man, summon all the most approved priests of your gods. Let them invoke their gods’ names to see whether they can restore the eye torn from their worshiper. When they cannot, I shall give him sight by invoking the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

At the tyrant’s command, the priests of the idols gathered and invoked their gods to restore the man’s sight. The demons answered: “Depart from us, for we have been condemned to eternal fire. Julian’s prayers have such power with the Lord that, from the day he was put to punishment, our punishment has been multiplied a hundredfold. Since we are in darkness, how can we restore the sight we do not have?”

Nothing of this was hidden from Julian. After praying, he said to Marcianus: “Hasten. Your gods summon you, though not willingly but under compulsion.”

Entering the temple, Marcianus saw all the images shattered and reduced to dust. Blinded by the devil, he began to cry: “O sorceries that prevail so greatly that they overcome even the powers of the gods and reduce them to dust! Yet the patience of these gods is praiseworthy, because they patiently endure injuries inflicted upon them so that, by suffering, they may subject their rebels to themselves.

“Now, Julian, who boast that you have overcome the most patient gods, fulfill your promise and restore the lost eye in Christ’s name. But lest you practice this through magic, I order you drenched with a washing through which all enchantments are known to be driven away.”

When Julian was drenched, Christ changed the foul-smelling wash into the fragrance of balsam. Julian then made the sign of the cross, invoked Christ’s name, and restored the man’s eye.

Having received sight, the man immediately cried: “Christ is the true God. He alone must be worshiped and adored.” When the governor heard him speaking in this way, he immediately had him put to the sword. Thus Christ consecrated as a martyr one baptized in his own blood.

After afflicting Julian with diverse punishments and loading his whole body with iron chains, the governor ordered him paraded around the city under a preconora [read: praeconia, herald’s] proclamation: “Those who rebel against the gods and contemn rulers deserve these things.”

When they came to the place where Celsus, the governor’s only son, was studying, the boy said to his fellow pupils: “I see an unheard-of thing: that Christian whom they are leading, a multitude clothed in white speaking with him, and above his head a crown of gems and gold whose brilliance blinds the light of this air or sky. I also see three other men with whitening hair, keeping watch over him by the flight of their wings like eagles. It seems to me that it is worthy to serve such a God, who protects his own in this way and surrounds them with such beauty.”

Hearing this, his fellow pupils and teacher were disturbed. Rebuking him gently, they tried to recall him from his purpose. But he cast aside his schoolbooks and threw off the garments he wore, saying: “My mother poured me naked into this world; what belongs to the world I leave to the world.”

Saying this, he set out through the city streets until he came to where Saint Julian was being tortured. Prostrate at his feet, he said: “I acknowledge you as the father of the second birth that Christ has shown me. I reject Marcianus, my begetter, as an enemy of truth. Clinging to you, I desire to suffer like things for Christ.”

Seeing this, the ministers of punishment were silent from amazement. Everyone in the whole city streamed toward such a spectacle and obstupescebat [read: obstupescebant, stood astonished] at the governor’s son clinging to the martyr and kissing his wounds.

When his parents heard this, they wasted away with grief and ordered that their son be separated from Julian and restored to them. But God’s mercy aided through the martyr’s prayers: if anyone wished to separate the boy from Julian’s embrace, that person’s hands and arms—eorum [read: eius]—were immediately contracted.

The governor then ordered them brought before him together. He said to Julian: “You strive through magical arts to take away the fruit of my hope, and by enticing spells you compel his tender heart to reject his parents’ affection.”

As he said this, the boy’s mother arrived with an innumerable household, her hair unbound, her breasts bared, and shouting. Seeing this, the governor cried out with his garments torn and face lacerated: “Cruel Julian, look upon a father’s and mother’s grief and the lamentation of so great a household. Release this innocent boy by your magic arts, and I shall petition the emperors for you, so that you may depart free of guilt.”

Julian replied: “I have no need of your intercession, nor do I desire to be released by your emperors. I ask only this of the Lord: that together with this lamb, born from the entrails of wolves, I may be received among the holy martyrs. Behold, the one who was born from you stands here. He has now been reborn by believing with me; let him give his answer to you and his mother.”

The boy replied: “Roses are born from thorns. The rose born from thorns does not lose its sweetest fragrance, nor does the shrub that bore the rose lose the points of its thorns. Therefore, prick as you are accustomed to do, and permit me to offer the fragrance of sweetness to believers.

“Let those who are prepared to perish obey you; let those who strive to pass from darkness to light imitate me. For Christ I deny you as parents, and through temporal death I acquire eternal life. I cannot be dutiful toward you while being cruel to myself.

“Why do you delay? Like an unbelieving and cruel man, why do you not take the sword in your hands, not as a true Abraham, and offer your son as a victim? Your expressions are vain, your tears false. No one will be able to separate me from this confession of faith.”

Harcianus [read: Marcianus] then ordered them cast into the lowest part of the prison. There, from the limbs of condemned men consumed by long decay, a swarm of horrible worms bubbled forth. But God’s grace went before them as they entered, made the horrible place delightful, turned the darkness into light, and caused the bubbling punishment to vanish.

When the soldiers who had brought them to be committed to custody saw this, they said to one another: “It is shameful to return to what we were and to neglect the salvation we have found.” They therefore rolled at Saint Julian’s feet, confessing and praising Christ’s name. The saint prayed that those whom he had won for Christ might receive baptism.

There were seven sons left by the deceased leading man of the city, who descended from the lineage of Emperor Carinus. Although they were Christians, the emperors, out of love for their father, had permitted them to serve the Christian religion without any persecution. They had with them a priest who celebrated the sacred mysteries for them.

Divinely commanded to go to the prison with the priest so that the converts might receive the grace of baptism, they did so. As soon as they touched the prison doors, every barrier opened. They entered and prayed to the Lord with blessed Julian.

When Marcianus heard this, he trembled. Bringing them out of prison, he said: “What has happened to you, little sons, that you desire to die without any persecution, when it has been granted to you to live according to your own judgment and worship your God?”

The eldest replied: “A mass of gold possesses the brightness of its nature, but unless it is broken into parts by the artisan’s hands, by fire, hammer, and files, it is not fashioned into a diadem worthy of a king’s head. So too we are Christians, but unless we follow Julian’s footsteps, we cannot be the diadem of the eternal King.”

The prefect ordered them taken back into custody. He informed the emperors, saying: “Most pious emperors, come to the aid of your laws; provide numina [read: munimen, protection] to the divine powers that remain, and present the magician Julian before your eyes. He has shattered more than fifty images of the gods through whom the world flourished. He has also separated my son from me, changed the soldiers’ minds, and made seven brothers ungrateful for your favors.”

The emperor gave permission that, if Julian persisted in this confession, the whole province should be assembled, separate vats prepared, pitch, bitumen, and sulfur put into them, and each person shut within and burned with fire set beneath. If a magical incantation prevailed against this, the governor had permission to afflict them with whatever punishment he wished.

The governor had a seat prepared for himself in the forum and ordered the saints presented to him. While he was speaking to Saint Julian, a lifeless body was being carried through the street for burial.

The governor ordered the body set down and said to Julian: “Your master Christ is said to have raised the dead before he was crucified. It will be evident that he is the true God if you raise this man.”

Julian replied: “What profit is it to a blind man if the sun rises? Although your unbelief does not merit this, nevertheless, because it is time for God’s power to be manifested, lest you think us powerless, I possess the Lord’s faithful promise that whatever I ask of him he will not deny me.”

The saint poured forth prayer before everyone and said to the body: “I say to you, dry earth, in the name of him who raised Lazarus after four days: arise.”

Immediately rising from the dead, the man cried: “O acceptable prayer! Where I was being led, and from where I have been brought back!”

Marcianus mockingly asked: “And from where have you been brought back?”

The man replied: “I do not know by what Ethiopians, whose stature was like that of giants, whose appearance was horrible, whose eyes were like fiery furnaces, whose teeth were like those of lions, whose arms were like beams, and whose nails were like eagles’ claws. Rejoicing, they were leading me to hell.

“But while Julian prayed, God’s voice said: ‘For the sake of my beloved Julian, let the soul be returned to the body.’ Then two men clothed in white came, snatched me from the hands of the impious spirits, and restored me to this place, so that through him who raised me after death I might acknowledge the one whom I denied while alive.”

The disturbed governor ordered this man also shut in prison with the saints and the punishment ordained by the emperors prepared.

The governor sat before the tribunal while people of every sex and age ran to the spectacle. Thirty-one vats filled with pitch, bitumen, and sulfur were arranged over fires. The saints were ordered brought from custody. Saint Julian and the boy Celsus were held by the same chain, and all sang a hymn to the Lord.

Compassion inclined the spectators’ minds, turned to weeping. Celsus said to his father: “When you see me unharmed after the fire, permit me to take counsel with my mother for three days. If you do this, you will lose neither me nor her.”

Hearing this, his mother urged that it be done. The governor replied: “If you escape from the fire unharmed, which I do not believe will happen, I shall do what you desire.”

Unable to bear seeing his son burned, he left the assessor behind and returned home with his wife, tearing his garments and wailing.

When the saints had been placed in the lighted vats, a multitude singing psalms was heard from the midst of the fire like the sound of many waters. After the fire was consumed, they appeared shining like gold and singing a hymn to God: “We have passed through fire and water,” and the rest.

Hearing this, the governor ran to the spectacle and said to Julian: “I beseech you by your God to tell me where you learned such great power of enchantments.”

Julian replied: “If anyone makes himself alien to all worldly actions so that he may hear only the Lord’s voice saying, ‘If anyone wishes to come after me,’ and the rest; if he puts nothing before Christ’s love and desires nothing other than what he promises, such a person will not only merit this grace in the present but will also establish eternal friendship with God.”

The governor said: “And who is so foolish as to flee the joy of this world?”

Julian replied: “God is ready to give this to everyone, but few are worthy to receive it.”

The boy Celsus then said: “During the three days granted me with my mother, let no one be present.” The holy martyrs were shut in the civic prison with the boy’s mother.

When they entered and poured forth prayer, the place was immediately shaken, a brilliance flashed, the customary fragrance appeared, and the voice of singers sounded.

Seeing and hearing this, the woman cried: “Never in my life have I experienced so sweet a fragrance. I am so filled by it that I forget all my griefs, and I know that nothing remains in my heart except that he for whom my son contends is the true God.”

The boy said to her: “Now I truly confess that you are my mother. You will not lose your son, nor I my mother, if with me you strive toward that gift for which the saints endure so much.”

His mother replied: “Know that I put nothing before the love of him whom you love. I believe him to be the true God, whom through your preaching I know to be the Creator of all things. I desire to be free of this earthly life so that I may merit to reach the eternal life with you.”

Saint Anthony the priest baptized her, and her son Celsus lifted her from the font. When Marcianus heard that his wife had converted, he angrily had her brought home.

The next day, sitting before the tribunal, he ordered twenty soldiers beheaded and the seven brothers handed over to the fire. He reserved for himself his wife, his son Celsus, Anthony the priest, and the man Anastasius who had been raised from the dead.

Gathering all the priests of the temples, he said: “Go and adorn the temple of Jupiter.” When this was done, he entered the temple and had the saints brought there before him.

He said to them: “Behold, the time has now come in which you may obtain salvation by offering sacrifice to the divine powers. Otherwise, I shall exercise diverse torments upon you.”

With all the priests of the idols standing by, Julian and Anthony knelt with their companions and prayed for the destruction of the temple and the shattering of the idols. When the prayer was completed, the temple was overturned, the idols were reduced to dust, their priests were crushed by the ruin, and a great part of the gentiles perished.

[Running head: Chapter One, Folio 256.]

The governor cried out, saying: “O magical power! O unheard-of incantation, prevailing so greatly! Now I shall have no mercy. Before I have them struck with the sword, I shall satisfy myself with their punishments.” He therefore ordered all of them shut in prison.

While they were engaged in praising God during the night, a multitude of saints who had triumphed through martyrdom arrived, clothed in white robes. Among them were the twenty soldiers and the seven brothers who had already suffered martyrdom, and Saint Basilissa with her choir of virgins. In that multitude only one voice was heard: “Alleluia.”

Basilissa said to Julian: “The kingdoms of heaven have been opened; come.”

On the next day Marcianus ordered the fingers of their hands and feet bound with wood soaked in oil and fire set beneath them. When he saw them unharmed, he ordered the skin removed from the heads of Julian and Celsus, and the eyes of Anthony and Anastasius—the man who had been raised from the dead—dug out with iron hooks.

When he ordered Marcianilla, Celsus’s mother, put upon the rack, any minister who wished to touch her was struck blind. But the Lord healed the saints in such a way that it was as though they had suffered nothing.

The tyrant next ordered every kind of wild beast sent against them. But however fierce the beasts released upon them were, they licked the saints’ feet.

At last he ordered all those saints beheaded with criminals, and thus they received the crown of martyrdom from the Lord. Suddenly a great earthquake occurred; lightning descended and thunder sounded; the temples of the idols were shattered; a great multitude of pagans perished; and the tyrant escaped half-alive. Not long afterward, however, he expired while boiling with worms.

The saints’ bodies were honorably buried, and their souls appeared above their tombs in the form of flames. They suffered on the eighth day before the Ides of January.

On Saints Cyprian and Justina. § XXI

Vincent recounts from their acts in the Speculum Historiale, Book XIII:

There was a certain virgin in the city of Antioch named Justina, a Christian by religion. A certain scholar named Accladius frequently saw her going to church and fell in love with her. He sent many people to her and sought her as his wife. When she told everyone that she was betrothed to Christ, her heavenly bridegroom, he wished to seize her by force but could not.

Then, in anger, he approached Cyprian the magician, promising him two talents of gold and silver if by sorcery he could induce the virgin Justina to consent to him.

It is related that this Cyprian had been consecrated to the devil by his parents when he was still seven years old. Serving the devil in every way and possessing painted images of demons in his books of magic, by that art he turned matrons into beasts of burden. He was given over to every pleasure and crime, inflicted many injuries upon Christians, and surpassed the demons themselves in acts of impiety.

The devil, a spirit of fornication, changed himself into Justina’s appearance in order to defile her reputation and mock Cyprian, who desired her and boasted of his own power. Thus the devil came to Cyprian in Justina’s form. When Cyprian wished to kiss her and, thinking her to be Justina, said, “Welcome, Justina, beauty of all women,” the demon could not bear even to hear Justina’s name spoken by Cyprian and vanished like smoke.

The aforementioned Accladius approached Cyprian himself and offered him much money if he would bring her to consent to him. Taught magical art by the devil, Cyprian gave him a certain ointment and instructed him to sprinkle it around her house, so that the devil himself might come and extort her father’s consent to accomplish the deed.

When this had been done, the virgin rose for prayer at about the third hour of the night and felt the assault of the tempter. She signed herself and her house with the sign of the cross and drove the demon away.

The demon came back to Cyprian in confusion. Asked why he had not brought the virgin, he said: “I saw a certain sign upon her and melted away.”

Cyprian invoked another, stronger demon to bring her to him, but the same thing happened to that one. At last Cyprian summoned the king of the demons and said to him: “What is your weakness? Has all your strength and glory been overcome by one girl?”

He answered: “Now I shall bring her to you, together with a desire for corruption.”

The devil then entered Justina’s presence in the appearance of a virgin and said to her: “Today I was sent to you by Christ to live with you in chastity. But I see you are greatly troubled by abstinence.”

The saint said: “The reward is indeed great, but the labor is slight.”

The devil also said: “From the beginning God blessed Adam and Eve, saying to them, ‘Increase and multiply,’ and so forth. I therefore think that, if we remain in virginity, we shall fall under judgment because we contemn God’s command.”

Tempted by these words, the virgin rose. But, taught by the Spirit who it was that spoke, she fortified herself with the sign of the cross and breathed upon the demon. It appeared no more.

Whenever Cyprian too was changed by magical art into a woman or a bird and came near the door of Justina’s house, he appeared neither as a woman nor as a bird, but as Cyprian. This must be understood to mean, not that he was really changed into another species, but that by the devil’s operation the eyes or imaginations of people, and of Cyprian himself, were dazzled so that he seemed to have been changed. Justina did not suffer this illusion of the devil.

Next the devil assumed the form of a very handsome young man, entered her bed, and sought to rush upon her with embraces and kisses. But when she made the sign of the cross, the youth appeared no more.

Moreover, he introduced frebres [read: febres, violent fevers] into her body, together with phantasms of shameful acts, but through prayer she overcame the temptations.

Through demoniacs or images of the gentiles he also foretold that a very great plague would come upon draft animals and cattle and would remain for a long time unless Justina were given in marriage. Because of this, the citizens importunately begged her parents to give her in marriage and so escape so great an evil. They even threatened Justina herself with death if she did not consent to the matter. She agreed in no way. After seven years, however, the plague ceased through her prayers. This is certainly very marvelous, yet it is not incredible when God permits it.

At last the prince of the demons, confounded in everything, appeared to Cyprian.

Cyprian said to him: “Have you also been overcome, like your subjects? Tell me how you have been overcome by one Christian virgin, and what is the power of this victory.”

He replied: “I cannot tell you. But I saw a certain terrible sign upon her and melted away.”

When Cyprian told him to disclose what that power was and whose sign it was, the devil replied: “If you wish me to tell you what that sign is, swear to me by my powers that you will never depart from me.”

Cyprian swore. The devil said: “I saw the sign of the Crucified, namely the sign of the cross, and I melted away. As wax flows before the face of fire, so did I flow away.”

Cyprian said to him: “Then the Crucified is greater than you.”

The devil replied: “Yes, he is greater than all, because through him God had mercy upon the world. Whether they are transgressing angels or people who have deserted God, they are brought by angels before the face of the crucified Christ and thus receive the sentence of unquenchable fire.”

Cyprian said to him: “I must hasten to Christ, lest I incur such a punishment.”

The devil said: “You swore to me by the power against which no one can commit perjury.”

Cyprian said to him: “I contemn you and all who fear your powers. I deny even myself, and, signing myself, I say: Glory to you, Christ. Demon, depart from me.”

The devil fled and vanished.

Cyprian approached Antinius [read: Anthimus], the bishop of the city, fell at his feet, and said: “Servant of the Most High God, sign me and catechize me in Christ’s name.”

The bishop, thinking that he might have come to lead the Church into error, said to Cyprian: “Let those who are outside be enough for you, Cyprian. You can do nothing against God’s Church, for Christ’s power is unconquered.”

But when Cyprian related how Christ’s power and the prayer of the holy virgin Justina had driven the demons away from him, the holy bishop blessed God.

Cyprian went to his house, broke all the idols, and wept for his sins throughout the night. Approaching the bishop, he was catechized by him and afterward baptized.

After some time he was made a deacon. Grace against demons was given to him, and he healed the sick. He was then promoted to the priesthood. At last blessed Antinius [read: Anthimus], foreknowing his own departure, convened a synod of bishops and ordained Cyprian bishop. Cyprian afterward made Justina a deaconess and appointed her mother of a monastery of virgins.

After these things Eutolmius, count of the East, heard that Bishop Cyprian, together with the virgin Justina, was destroying the glory of the gods. He ordered them presented to him and said to Cyprian: “Are you Cyprian, who have caused many to go astray through the magical art of the Crucified?”

Cyprian replied: “He who is the true God saved me on account of the holy virgin Justina. For through the sign of the Crucified she put to flight the demons whom I sent against her. Even that most wretched devil himself was compelled by angels to reveal the mystery and power of the Crucified.”

The count ordered him suspended and torn with claws, and the virgin beaten with rawhide thongs and struck in the face by executioners. He then ordered a large iron pan made and pitch, fat, and wax put into it. When it had been heated violently, he ordered Cyprian and Justina put into it. But the fire became like dew to them, and, placed in the pan, they praised God.

Athnasius [read: Athanasius], a priest of the idols, asked the governor that he might be placed over the pan—that is, beside the pan—and that by invoking the gods the pair might be bewitched so that, their magical art notwithstanding, they would fail in the pan itself. When he had obtained this and came near the pan, he said: “Great is the god Hercules; great is Jupiter, father of the gods; and great is Asclepius, who gives health to human beings.” As he said this, the fire leapt forth and consumed him down to his bones.

At last the holy martyrs were beheaded and passed to Christ’s heavenly kingdom. Their bodies are said to have been translated to Rome.

The little book entitled On the Penance of Cyprian is placed among the apocryphal writings in Distinction XV, Sancta Romana. Certain phylacteries called the Prayer of Cyprian, in which mention is made of his penance, contain this material together with many characters and names of demons and must be rejected as superstitious.

Saint Vincent. § XXII

At the same time, under that same Datianus in Spain, blessed Vincent also suffered on the eleventh day before the Kalends of February, as Vincent recounts in the Speculum Historiale, Book XIII.

He was of very noble birth and, having been entrusted to letters from boyhood, shone most effectively in a twofold knowledge under blessed Valerius, bishop of the city of Caesaraugusta. Distinguished also for holiness, he received the artem [read: arcem, summit] of the diaconate from him. Because the bishop himself had a rather impeded tongue, after entrusting Vincent with the ministry of teaching, he devoted himself assiduously to prayer and contemplation.

When Governor Datianus ordered bishops and other ministers of the ecclesiastical order seized, Valerius and Vincent ran cheerfully to confess the divinity. Datianus ordered them taken to Valencia and there to endure the misery of hunger and the clanking of chains under prison custody.

After some days he ordered them brought out of prison and presented before him. By threatening torments, he invited them against their will to the worship of the gods.

Bishop Valerius remained silent, for he was a man of marvelous simplicity and innocence, learned indeed in knowledge but impeded in speech.

Vincent said: “Father, if you command it, I shall engage the judge with answers.”

Valerius said: “Long ago, dearest son, I committed to you the care of the divine word; now, for the faith for which we stand, I commit the answers to you.”

Vincent then said to Datianus: “Understand that in Christian prudence it is recognized as wicked to blaspheme by denying the worship of the Deity. Lest I draw you out any longer, we profess that we are worshipers of the Christian religion and servants and witnesses of the one true God. In his name we do not fear your threats and punishments; rather, for the truth we most gladly embrace death.”

Datianus then said angrily: “Remove this bishop from here. It is just that he undergo exile, since he has contemned the imperial edict. But fasten this rebel, who has come to offer a public insult, to the rack. Stretch out his limbs and tear apart his whole body.”

While Vincent was being tortured, Datianus said: “O Vincent, what do you say, when you look upon your pitiable body?”

Strengthened by God’s presence, Vincent said with a cheerful countenance: “This is what I have always hoped for and sought with all my vows. Do not diminish my glory. You alone accord with my vows. No one has ever been more friendly to me. Behold, I am now raised on high and, raised above the world, I despise all your princes. Arise, therefore; rage with the whole spirit of your malignity. While I am tortured, you will see that I can do more by God’s power than you who torture me can do.”

Datianus began to shout and to rage still more against the torturers and executioners, gnashing his teeth amid rods and clubs. While he lacerated God’s martyr, he lacerated himself still more.

At last the weary hands of the lictors gave way. While the entrails hung through the saint’s sides, Datianus himself, bloodless and trembling in his breast, failed and began to cry out with fierce and threatening eyes: “What are you doing, murderers, stubbornly holding back? You have often overcome men; you have broken the deep silences of parricides and magicians. But stay your right hands for a little while. Recover your strength, so that, like a renewed soldier, you may restrain the shameless enemy more harshly for punishment. Let a sharper claw search the innermost parts of his ribs, and let pain penetrating his inner organs make him return a groan, not contempt.”

Vincent then said with a smile: “Because the things I confess are true, torture the confessor still longer. For the gods you command me to confess are wooden and stone idols. Become a pontiff of the dead; I sacrifice to the one God, who is God blessed forever.”

Chapter One, Folio 257

But the governor, burning with excessive madness and with every trace of humanity overturned in his face, directed only the point of his gaze and the poison of his eyes against the martyr’s body. Seeing blood flow from his whole body, his entrails exposed, and his joints torn from their settings, he said: “Have mercy upon yourself, Vincent. Do not now destroy the first flower of your budding age, but, even though late, gain exemption from the torments that remain.”

Vincent replied: “O poisonous tongue of the devil, I do not fear your torments. What frightens me more is that you pretend to wish to show mercy. Diminish none of the punishments, so that in everything you may confess yourself overcome. For the more grievously you think yourself to rage, the better you begin to show mercy toward me.”

Vincent was therefore taken from the rack and dragged to the fiery gibbet. Rebuking the executioners for delay, he hastened cheerfully to the punishment. For the savage tyrant had already ordered a bed with iron ribs brought forth and a heap of coals placed beneath it, so that the martyr might be fastened to it and burned.

The intrepid athlete of God therefore climbed voluntarily upon the apparatus of glowing iron. He was tortured, scourged, and burned, and the punishment increased as his limbs were stretched. The roughness of plates pressed down upon his breast and limbs was driven into them. As blood ran among the edges of the glowing iron, the sizzling flame was spattered with a ruina [read: aruina, grease]. Particles of salt crackling in the fire leapt across his limbs. The weapons of punishment were now hurled not merely against his bodily members, but into the very recesses of his entrails.

God’s servant remained unmoved and, raising his eyes to heaven, prayed to God.

Datianus then said: “We are overcome. At least let the spirit that cannot be restrained be punished. Find, therefore, a dark place oppressed by a low roof. Gather fragments of potsherds there into a jagged bed, so that whatever part of his badly mangled body touches them as he lies down may be pierced by their unpolished points. Let even the turning of his sides renew the punishment, so that the members which seek escape by changing position always meet an obstruction. Furthermore, spread his legs apart and stretch them out, fasten his feet in the stocks, and leave him enclosed in darkness. Let no one be left there, lest he be encouraged even by the fellowship of someone’s conversation.”

The ministers carried out the command without delay. But when the guards of that prison began to sleep, its night received eternal light. Candles burned, radiating beyond the brilliance of the sun. The strength of the loosened stocks burst apart, and the rough potsherds became the softness and delight of fragrant flowers.

Refreshed by them, God’s athlete rejoiced while singing a hymn to God, surrounded by a company of angels. He enjoyed their service and was soothed by their speech: “O Vincent, he who made you victor in the punishments keeps a crown prepared for you in heaven. Be secure now about the reward, for soon, when the burden of the flesh has been laid down, you will be added to our fellowship.”

Praises were then given to God. As the organ of the voice resounded, sweetness modulated in angelic fashion spread far abroad.

The guards were suddenly disturbed and greatly astonished. Looking inside through a crack in the door, they saw the dark place shining with immeasurable light, and Vincent, freed from his bonds, singing psalms. Pricked by divine fear, they gave themselves to the Christian religion.

When these things were reported to Datianus, he became bloodless and said: “What more shall we do? We are overcome. Let the body therefore be returned to a bed and warmed with softer bedding. For I do not wish to make him more glorious if he dies amid the torments. Let a brief rest be granted, to refresh his bruised limbs, and when the gaping wounds have closed into scars, let him be renewed and subjected to exquisite and novel punishments.”

But the excellent martyr of God, carried to a little bed and laid upon the softness of the bedding, was soon released into a precious death and returned his spirit to heaven.

Learning of his departure, Datianus said: “If I could not overcome him alive, I shall at least punish him dead. Cast him,” he said to his ministers, “into an open field, so that the corpse may lack the honor of burial and, consumed by wild birds, may appear no more, lest Christians happen to come and, taking away his remains, claim the dignity of a martyr for him.”

Thus the body, exposed without any covering, was honored by angelic watches and services. A crow suddenly arrived and with its wings drove away the other approaching birds. Moreover, a wolf hastened up and drove the other beasts away. Turning its neck back toward the sacred body, it gazed upon it, as though in astonishment at seeing, as is believed, the angelic guard.

Terrified when he heard these things, Datianus said: “I think I shall be unable to overcome him even when he is dead. But if he cannot be consumed on land, let him be submerged in the sea. The waters will conceal his victory, and fish, licking him at the bottom of the sea, will consume him as food. Let a millstone of no small weight also be bound to him, lest the moving wave carry the defeated man to foreign shores and he somehow attain the burial denied to him.”

When the ministers had carried out the commands, the saint’s body, which they believed was held in the depth of the deeper sea, reached the harbor before anyone could report that it had been cast out.

At last a certain holy widow, admonished in dreams, received true signs of the resting body. She secretly disclosed the vision to several Christians and, going with them to the place on the shore to which the wave had cast it by God’s operation, they committed it to honorable burial.

When the persecution had ceased, it was raised from there with greater honor and laid outside the walls of the city of Valencia beneath the altar of a certain church.

Saint George. § XXIII

During the persecution of Datianus, as Vincent recounts in the Speculum Historiale in the place cited above, George, a soldier, came from Cappadocia to Diospolis, a city in Persia [read: Palestine]. Seeing the straits of the Christians, this most Christian man clothed himself in the others’ garment and thrust himself into the midst of those sacrificing to the idols, saying in a loud voice: “All the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens.”

Datianus was immediately filled with wrath and said to him: “By what presumption or dignity do you dare to say these things or call our gods demons? Tell me, nevertheless, where you come from and what you are called.”

He replied: “I am a Christian, George by name, a Cappadocian by race. I have abandoned everything so that I may serve the God of heaven more freely.”

When the governor could not incline him to his side, he ordered him suspended on the rack and his body torn upon it. He then had torches applied to his sides and, when fissures had opened in his entrails, ordered his wounds rubbed with salt. George remained unmoved, as though he suffered nothing.

Seeing that he could not overcome him by punishments, Datianus sought a magician named Athenasius [read: Athanasius]. He said to him: “Christians contemn torments by their magical arts. Can you, then, overcome them by your work?”

He replied: “If I cannot overcome this man’s arts, I shall be guilty before you.”

George was therefore brought out of prison, and the magician gave him a cup full of poison. When he had drunk it all, he received no harm from it. Again he gave him another cup full of a stronger poison. Making the sign of the cross first, George drank it as before and remained unharmed.

Pricked by this sign, the magician sought pardon from him, but on account of this he received from the governor a sentence of beheading.

After this the tyrant ordered George placed on a wheel surrounded by double-edged swords. When he had been set upon it and said, “O God, make haste to help me,” the whole wheel was broken.

Afterward the tyrant ordered him put into a pan filled with boiling lead. Cast into it, he made the sign of the cross and was refreshed as though in a bath.

Finally, because he remained immovable in the faith, sentence was given. He was dragged throughout the whole city and received martyrdom by the cutting off of his head.

His legend is placed among the apocryphal writings in Distinction XV, Sancta Romana. This is not because he was not truly a martyr for confessing Christ’s name—Ambrose also attests to that—but because of certain things recorded in it which are doubtful as to their truth: for example, the dragon slain by him; the king’s daughter, who was to be devoured by that dragon, freed by him; and the statement that he told Datianus he was prepared to sacrifice if he would have the people gather at the temple, after which, through his prayer, the temple was set ablaze by heavenly fire and many thousands of people died, and other such things.

Saint Faith. § XXIV

Under Datianus, the holy virgin named Faith also suffered in the city of Agen. She was of tender age and a Christian from the cradle. Although a young girl in years, she was nevertheless white-haired in judgment and works.

Questioned by Datianus, she steadfastly confessed that she was a Christian. When she asserted that the gods of the gentiles were demons and could be induced to sacrifice neither by flatteries nor by threats, at the governor’s command she was stretched out with her limbs spread apart upon a bronze grate, coals placed beneath it and fat cast into the flames. While she was tortured in this way, she converted many to Christ by her example.

Then Saint Caprasius, who was hiding near the city in the opening of a certain rock because of fear of the governor and who saw what was being done within the circuit of the walls, learned that the virgin was being tortured in this way and prayed to the Lord that he would make her victorious in the contest.

Again prostrate, he asked the Lord to deign to show him the reward of her martyrdom. He immediately saw what appeared to be a snow-white dove descending from heaven. It placed a crown shining with gold and gems upon the virgin’s head, so that God’s power might appear more clearly around her. By the flight of its wings and heavenly dew, that same dove so extinguished the fire that nothing of the blaze remained.

Seeing these things with spiritual eyes and now confident of the victory, Caprasius struck with his right hand the rock beneath which he had remained, and a spring immediately burst forth. By Saint Caprasius’s merits, it furnishes a remedy of health to the sick even to the present day.

Caprasius therefore leapt forth, hastened to the place of the contest, and offered himself to Datianus as a Christian. When he was bent neither by flatteries nor threats, he was so mangled by the cruelty of the one giving the orders that, among others standing around, the brothers Primus and Felicianus were converted to Christ because of his patience. Together with Caprasius himself and the virgin Faith, they were struck with the sword at the neck.

Saint Felix. § XXV

In Spain too, in the city of Gerunda, Saint Felix suffered under that same Datianus, as Vincent attests in the Speculum Historiale in the place cited above.

While pursuing liberal studies at Caesarea and striving to appear more perfect than everyone, he heard, as if along the whole Spanish coast, that a grave persecution had arisen against Christians. He cast away all the volumes of laws he carried in his hands and said: “What have I to do with the philosophy of this world? I shall now hasten to that philosophy which has no beginning and knows no end.”

Passing, therefore, to Empúries, described in the source as the Impuritana city, he exercised himself in the divine books, bestowed alms upon the poor with a generous hand, was hospitable beyond measure, and also preached God’s word.

Afterward he transferred himself to the city of Gerunda. There he did similar things, so that people called him an apostle or prophet.

There was a certain Rufinus who reported these things to Datianus. Datianus gave him authority to imprison Felix bound in iron and, after trying persuasions upon him, either to honor him if he sacrificed or to torture him if he refused.

Rufinus came and ordered Felix apprehended. Wishing, like a greedy robber, to take his money from him and not knowing that Felix had already given all he owned to the poor, he began with flattering words to urge him to sacrifice. When Felix refused, Rufinus ordered him beaten with clubs.

While Felix gave thanks to the Lord God amid these things, Rufinus ordered him bound hand and foot, burdened at the neck with a great weight of iron, and enclosed in a filthy place to waste away with hunger and thirst.

But when the tyrant learned that Felix had not failed as he had supposed but remained unharmed, he had him brought back from prison and bound with iron chains to untamed mules. He made him be dragged through every street of the city until his whole body was lacerated.

Afterward, when Felix had been thrust into prison and lay there lifeless, a handsome young man—that is, an angel—appeared, comforted him, and healed his wounds.

Next, when the temple of the gods had been adorned and the sacrifices prepared, Rufinus invited Felix, brought out before everyone, to sacrifice to the gods with the other people.

Felix said: “Depart from the works of your hands and acknowledge the supreme God, who formed you from clay.”

At this utterance the whole crowd of pagans made an assault upon him in order to tear him apart. Rufinus delivered him to the executioners to be torn with claws and suspended head downward until, in the source’s damaged wording, ‘his profocatae cartilages breathed out blood’ [meaning uncertain].

Hanging in this way from the third hour until evening, he sang psalms and, comforted by God, felt no pain.

Taken back to prison, he was heard singing psalms with a great many others. A marvelous brightness and a balsiminus [read: balsaminus, balsamic] fragrance appeared.

When this had been reported to Rufinus, he had Felix cast headlong into the sea with his hands bound behind his back. But his bonds were loosed by divine power. He was seen walking upon the waves and singing “Alleluia” with the angels who held him. Thus he came to shore.

Hearing these things, Rufinus had him brought before him. He urged Felix to sacrifice, arguing that the gods had been favorable to him in such great punishments. But Felix refused and reproved him for his own perdition.

At last Rufinus ordered him again torn with claws down to the bones, and, thus shattered, led on a long journey so that, weighed down by the journey and the wounds, he might at least breathe out his spirit. While he was being led, Felix offered a prayer and rendered his spirit to God as it flew to the realms above.

Chapter One, Folio 258

In Spain too, in the city of Complutum, under Datianus, is celebrated the birthday of Saints Justus and Pastor. While they were still boys being instructed in letters, they cast aside their tablets in the schools and ran voluntarily to martyrdom. Datianus immediately ordered them seized. As they strengthened one another most steadfastly by mutual exhortations, they were led outside the city and slaughtered by the executioners on the eighth day before the Ides of August.

At last the most cruel Governor Datianus, seeing that he could not overcome the Christians’ devotion by torments, said to the assembled crowds of his attendants, as Vincent relates in the Speculum Historiale: “We accomplish nothing by laboring in this contest, for while we desire to overcome the Christians by raging more savagely, we minister abundantly to their victories.

“Let our plan, therefore, be hidden from them. Let the offices of the heralds traverse the whole city, so that the multitude which is concealed in homes may be driven from this city as though permission had been granted them to live by their own laws. But you, our fellow soldiers, occupy concealed places with your armi [read: armis, weapons] and then, suddenly leaping out against the unarmed enemy, overwhelm them in rivalry with one another.”

Why say more? When the heralds’ announcement had been given, hosts of Christians came forth in troops, voluntarily leaving open the enclosures of their homes. They rejoiced and sang psalms with one harmonious voice: “Glory to God in the highest,” and so forth.

After this every gate of the city was barred, so that none of them might find a way to return. Armed men immediately leapt from their hiding places, rushed upon them with swords, and struck them down like lambs that offered no resistance.

Not even then were they satisfied by the slaughter of the innocent dead. By Datianus’s command, the bodies of the slain were gathered into one place before everyone and burned.

Lest qui [read: quis]—that is, any Christian—secretly snatch away the martyrs’ ashes for himself, Datianus ordered prisoners guilty of diverse crimes brought out of the prisons. Their heads were cut off, and their corpses were joined to the saints’ bodies and burned with them. Thus they followed their head, Jesus Christ, who was crucified in the midst of thieves.

Because of their exceedingly great number, these martyrs were called the White Mass. Their passion is recorded on the ninth day before the Kalends of September, and this is written to have been accomplished in the city of Caesaraugusta.

Saint Theodore. § XXVI

In the city of Amasia on the Hellespont [read: in Helenopontus], in the time of Diocletian, blessed Theodore suffered.

This most Christian man, seizing an opportunity one night, entered the temple of Diana and set it on fire. When certain people heard this, they accused him before Governor Publius.

Brought before him and asked why he had done this, Theodore replied: “I do not deny what I did. To burn a stone, I set wood alight. Such is your goddess that she deserves to be burned.”

The governor angrily ordered him beaten severely.

The saint said to him: “Even if you cut every limb from me, your madness will not be able to prevail against me.”

He was then sent to prison, where he was nourished by the Holy Spirit. That same night the Savior appeared and comforted him. Then, out of joy, he began to sing psalms and glorify God.

A multitude of angels also came to him. Hearing their voices, the prison guards thought that certain Christians had entered to see him. But finding the door locked, they reported what had happened to the governor.

The governor came and found Theodore alone. He ordered restricted bread and scant water supplied to him, but the Lord provided for his servant.

Afterward the governor ordered him suspended and scraped. They scraped away his flesh so extensively that even his inner organs could be seen. While he was being scraped, he said nothing except: “I shall bless the Lord at all times.”

Finally the judge ordered him burned with fire. The ministers and people therefore kindled the fire and cast him into it with two companions, Eutropius and Eleonicus. As they commended themselves to Theodore, he prayed to the Lord for their endurance.

The flame curved above his body in the manner of an arch or of a curtain when it is inflated by the wind, and many people perceived a most pleasant fragrance coming from him. They also saw heaven opened above him and heard a voice from heaven saying: “Come, Theodore, my friend; enter into the joy of your Lord.”

He then returned his undefiled spirit to the Lord. His body was found whole and without any mark of burning, and it was buried. His martyrdom is celebrated on the fifth day before the Ides of November.

Saint Pantaleon. § XXVII

At that time Saint Pantaleon, son of the senator Eustorgius, also suffered in the city of Nicomedia. While he was still a boy learning medicine there, his teacher used to lead him to the palace, and everyone praised him for his appearance.

One day, when he was going alone to the palace, the priest Hermolaus saw him. Hermolaus was hiding with other Christians in his house. Observing the boy’s well-ordered conduct, he called him to himself. After asking him about many things, he admonished him to believe in Christ, promising that in Christ’s name he would heal every sick person without medicine.

Strengthened in the faith, the boy one day saw a child wounded by a serpent. Wishing to test Hermolaus’s words, he prayed to God that the serpent would burst and the child escape. When this occurred, the boy Pantaleon ran to Hermolaus and sought baptism. Hermolaus joyfully granted it and kept him with himself for seven days, instructing him in the faith.

When Pantaleon returned home on the eighth day, his father asked: “Son, where have you been for so many days? You have greatly troubled me by your absence.”

He replied that he and his teacher had been treating a sick man in the palace and that he had remained with him until the man was healed.

The next day he returned to his teacher and, when similarly questioned, replied that his father had bought a field and that this was why he had remained with him for so long. He was saying these things about himself, for he wished in this way to call his father back from idolatry.

One day he said to him: “Father, I ask you why one of the gods always stands, while another who sits never stands.”

His father said: “By my salvation, you have raised a grave question for me, and I cannot answer it.” From that hour his father began to doubt and ceased sacrificing to the idols.

In his father’s presence, Pantaleon gave sight to a certain blind man by touching his eyes. Thus he converted both his father and the blind man who had received sight to Christ’s faith. The priest Hermolaus baptized them.

After Pantaleon’s father had broken all the idols, he passed to the Lord a short time later. Pantaleon then gave freedom to all his servants. He cared for them and for the other Christians and supplied them with food.

All the neighboring cities began to stream to him for the healing of their sick, abandoning the other physicians. Those physicians envied him. When they once found him treating a certain Christian, they accused him before Emperor Maximian.

The emperor had the blind man who had received sight brought before him. Asked how he had come to see, the man replied that the Lord Jesus Christ had given him sight through Pantaleon. Because of this confession of Christ, the emperor had him beheaded. Pantaleon, however, gave money to the executioner and buried his body beside the body of his father.

Pantaleon himself was then presented to Caesar. While he preached Christ, he asked Caesar to have some paralytic brought forward, so that the one in whose power the paralytic was healed might be regarded as God.

The priests of the idols accomplished nothing by praying. Pantaleon prayed, and the paralytic was suddenly healed. Seeing this, many believed, while the priests and physicians, gnashing their teeth against him, raged still more.

The emperor said: “Pantaleon, have you heard how much the old man Antinius [read: Antimus] recently suffered?”

Pantaleon replied: “He suffered many things but was not overcome. If an old man endured so much for God, how much more ought I, a young man, endure so that I may merit to be crowned with him?”

By Caesar’s command, he was tortured on the rack and burned around the sides with torches. The Lord appeared to him, withered the hands of those beating him, and extinguished the torches.

Caesar then angrily ordered him cast into a pan filled with boiling lead. When the Lord appeared to him, the fire was immediately extinguished and the lead grew cold.

Next he ordered Pantaleon bound to a stone and cast into the sea. But, freed from it, Pantaleon swam to shore unharmed.

After this the emperor had the most savage beasts sent against him. They did not harm him in any way, and he stroked them with his hands like puppies. Many were converted to the faith by this, and the emperor had all of them beheaded together with the wild beasts.

After Pantaleon had been confined for a month, he was placed upon a wheel. But when the wheel was set in motion it broke and killed five hundred gentiles.

The emperor said to him: “Who taught you these things?”

Pantaleon replied: “Hermolaus.”

Wishing to kill Hermolaus, Caesar said: “Can I see Hermolaus, so that he may teach me these things?”

By the emperor’s command, Pantaleon therefore approached Hermolaus and said: “Father, the emperor summons you.”

Hermolaus replied: “I am coming, son, for my time has come, just as Christ revealed to me yesterday.”

Seeing them, Caesar asked whether there were more Christians.

Hermolaus said: “There are also two other brothers, Herumpus [read: Hermippus] and Ypocrates [read: Hermocrates], who are Christians.”

They were brought forward. As they prayed together, an earthquake occurred and the idols fell.

Caesar said to them: “You see that the angry gods have shaken the earth.”

Pantaleon replied: “If the gods did this, why did they themselves fall and break?”

Caesar, enraged, ordered those three beheaded after many punishments had been inflicted upon them, and after some days he ordered Pantaleon beheaded as well.

But when the executioner appeared ready to strike him at the place of his passion, the man’s sword bent like wax. When the ministers saw this and sought pardon, Pantaleon arose and granted them his death. Thus, beheaded, he completed his martyrdom on the fifth [read: sixth] day before the Kalends of August.

Saint Cucufatus. § XXVIII

Saint Cucufatus, a man of the highest nobility and born of very wealthy parentage in the city of Quistilitana [read: Scillitana], suffered at Barcelona in that tempest. He had devoted himself to the study of liberal letters with Saint Felix, of whom it was said above.

Devoted to almsgiving, he departed from his own city. When he arrived at Barcelona and there applied himself diligently to preaching, he began to shine with the glory of miracles, healing the sick and casting demons from possessed bodies.

Hearing this, the proconsul Galerius ordered him presented before him. When Cucufatus stood before him, Galerius reproved him for not worshiping the gods.

Cucufatus replied: “To whom, most foolish of men, do you command me to offer worship? They were invented and constructed, not by God’s decision, but by the art of diabolical fraud and the stupidity of the most foolish people, people like you.”

Filled with excessive fury by this reply, Galerius delivered him to torturers, saying: “Torture this man until you wrench his spirit from him.”

Twelve soldiers tortured him for a long time. By their very harsh scourging, his body was ruptured and his entrails lay exposed.

The saint cried: “Lord Jesus Christ, show your power upon the unbelievers, so that when they see it they may either be converted and believe, or be destroyed and perish. And if the most impious Galerius, who rages so madly against your servant, is not predestined to life, quickly kill him with your sword.”

When this prayer was completed, the soldiers who were torturing him saw his intestines poured upon the ground and were struck blind. Galerius was consumed together with all his idols. The holy martyr’s entrails were restored to his abdomen, and he was very quickly healed by divine operation. Giving thanks to God, all the people praised God, saying: “You are the true God whom Cucufatus worships.”

When these things were related to Maximian, he wished Cucufatus brought to him bound in chains.

Asked by Maximian what God he worshiped, Cucufatus replied: “Why do you ask about God as though in doubt, as though there were several gods or he who is God were divided? I know no other God besides the true God, who made heaven and earth and whom I bless with my whole heart.”

Maximian said to him: “If your God is true, let him now free you from my hands and from the torments prepared for you.”

Cucufatus replied: “O most wicked man, I laugh at you and your father the devil, together with all the exquisite torments you may inflict upon me; and through the power of the name of my Lord Jesus Christ I despise them.”

The maddened governor then ordered him roasted upon a gridiron and, after he had been burned, drenched with mustard and vinegar. Christ’s soldier sang a psalm, saying: “Hear my justice, O Lord,” and so forth. When the psalm had been spoken, he was healed, while the ministers of the punishments were consumed by the fire.

After this the tyrant ordered a great fire made outside the city and Cucufatus thrown into it. When he was cast into it, the fire went out and he appeared unharmed.

When he had been shut in prison, an exceedingly great brilliance flashed forth. The prison guards saw this and were converted to the faith.

When morning came, the tyrant had him presented and beaten with iron cards and bull sinews. As the saint prayed that through God’s power he might overcome everything and that the idols might be scattered, every idol was reduced to dust and he appeared unharmed.

Then all the people began to cry: “Great is the Christians’ God, and most powerful is their deliverer.”

Rufinus, who governed the city, had him beheaded, for Governor Maximian had died there by the will of God. Thus Cucufatus merited martyrdom by the cutting off of his head.

Saints Donatian and Rogatian. § XXIX

At that same time two young brothers, Donatian and Rogatian, flourished in the city of Narneticha [read: Namnetica, Nantes], as Vincent writes in the Speculum Historiale. Although Donatian was still situated in youth, he had already passed into the maturity of an old man.

When persecution arose, Rogatian, who was older by birth, ran to his brother, asking to be baptized before the persecutor approached. He did not obtain this because the priest was absent.

Both were seized and sent to prison. There Saint Rogatian, saddened that he had not been baptized, believed it would suffice for him if he received a kiss from his brother. Saint Donatian prayed to the Lord for him, that martyrdom might be to him in place of baptism.

This was accomplished. Both were placed upon the scaffold, suspended and lacerated, then pierced by a soldier’s lance, and finally struck at the head on the ninth day before the Kalends of June.

Saint Pancratius

There was also Saint Pancratius, whom Vincent in Book XIII of the Speculum Historiale says suffered under Emperor Diocletian. But Jacobus de Voragine in his legends says that Pancratius suffered at Rome in the time of Pope Cornelius, who lived much earlier, namely in the time of Decius.

Born of very noble parentage in Phrygia, Pancratius was orphaned of his parents and remained under the care of his paternal uncle Dionysius. The two therefore returned to Rome, where they possessed an extensive patrimony. In their village Pope Cornelius was hiding with the faithful, and from this Cornelius the aforementioned Dionysius and Pancratius received baptism.

Dionysius rested in peace. When Pancratius was fourteen years old, he was presented to Caesar as a Christian.

Caesar said to him: “Little child, I advise you not to die an evil death. Because you are a boy, you are easily deceived; because you are proven noble and have shown yourself the son of a man most dear to me, I ask you to withdraw from this madness, so that I may regard you as my own son.”

Pancratius replied: “Although I am a boy in body, I bear an aged heart. By the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, your terror has as much force among us as this picture we see. Your gods, whom you urge me to worship, were deceivers and ravishers of their own sisters; they did not spare even their parents. If today you learned that your servants were such men, you would immediately order them killed. I marvel that you are not ashamed to worship such gods.”

Augustus, judging himself overcome by a boy, ordered him beheaded on the Aurelian Way.

At his tomb, as Gregory of Tours says, if anyone wishes to swear falsely, before reaching the rail of the church choir he either immediately goes mad, seized by a demon, or falls upon the pavement and loses his life.

Thus once, when there was a dispute between two men and the judge was by no means ignorant which was guilty, but proofs were lacking, the judge himself, led by zeal for justice, had both men approach Saint Peter’s altar. He compelled the guilty man to clear by an oath the innocence he was pretending, asking the apostle to show the truth by some judgment.

When that man had sworn and suffered no evil, the judge, conscious of the swearer’s malice and kindled with zeal for truth, said: “This old man Peter is either too merciful or yields to the younger saint. Let us therefore go to the young Pancratius and seek the truth from him.”

When they came to his tomb and the guilty man did not fear to swear falsely, he could not withdraw his hand from it, and there he later expired.

[Running head: Chapter One, Folio 259.]

Saints Adrian and Natalia. § XXX

Vincent relates concerning Saints Adrian and his wife Natalia in the Speculum Historiale, in the place cited above:

When Emperor Maximian was sacrificing to the idols in Nicomedia, a city of Greece [read: Bithynia], Christians from diverse places were dragged to punishments at his command. Neighbors dragged neighbors, and relatives their own household members, some from fear of punishment and others from love of the money promised to them.

Among them, twenty-three Christians hiding in a cave were found by those searching for them, bound in iron, and brought to Caesar. Freely professing themselves Christians, they were stretched out and beaten. Because they derided the threats all the more, their faces were battered with hard stones and they were thrust back into prison.

Then Adrian, chief of the military office, was pricked by their steadfastness and said to them: “I adjure you by your God, for whom you suffer so much, to tell me what recompense you await through these torments.”

They replied: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the human heart what the Lord has prepared for those who love him.”

Hearing this, Adrian immediately leapt into their midst and said: “Record me with these men, for I am a Christian.”

When the ministers quickly reported this to the emperor, Maximian, exceedingly angry, had Adrian brought before him, admonished him to return to his senses, and, when he refused to acquiesce, ordered him bound in iron and thrust into prison with the condemned men.

When Natalia, his wife, learned this from a messenger, she tore her garment and, weeping and wailing, asked the servant why her lord had been sent to prison.

He replied: “He saw certain Christians being tortured because they refused to sacrifice. Having himself enrolled with them, he said he wished to die with them.”

Until then she had concealed because of the persecution that she was a Christian. Rejoicing, she changed her garment and ran to the prison. Kissing her husband’s chains, she began to comfort him in every way, asking him to remain in what he had begun, to look upon none of this earthly glory but always to sigh for heavenly and eternal things, to fear no transitory torments, but to rejoice that he had escaped the infinitely greater punishments of hell.

After this, she kissed the bonds and feet of the holy martyrs and asked them to strengthen him. Bidding farewell to all, she went to her home according to her husband’s agreement, so that she might be summoned on the day of their passion.

After a little while Adrian heard that the day of his passion was at hand. Receiving permission from the saints to go and summon Natalia, as he had promised her with an oath, and giving a gift to the guards, he left.

When he reached his home, Natalia heard that Adrian was coming after having been released. Thinking that he had fled from prison, she began to weep very bitterly. Rising against him, she shut the door and said: “May it not fall to me to speak with the mouth of one who has denied his God. O wretched man, who separated you from the saints? Who seduced you, so that you withdrew from the assembly of peace? Why did you flee before the battle? Alas, I was not granted the space of a single hour to be called the wife of a martyr rather than of a transgressor. I had rejoiced for a little while, and behold, reproach will be mine forever.”

Hearing these and similar things, Adrian rejoiced. Made more ardent by the words of this one young woman, who had been married to him only fourteen months before, he most gladly desired martyrdom.

When he saw her grieving most heavily, he said: “Open to me, lady. I have not fled martyrdom as you think, but I have come to summon you, as I promised, so that you may be present at our passion.”

Not believing him, she said: “See how the transgressor seduces me, how this second Judas lies.”

Adrian said to her: “Open to me quickly, for I shall go and you will see me no more. Afterward you will mourn because you did not see me before my departure. For I gave the holy martyrs as sureties. If the ministers search for me and do not find me, the martyrs will have to endure both my torments and their own.”

She immediately opened the door. They prostrated themselves to one another and went with tears to the prison together.

Going around to each of the martyrs, Natalia wiped their putrefying wounds with precious linens and bound their limbs with linen cloths.

On the appointed day the emperor ordered them brought out. Those who had been weakened by punishments and could not walk were carried. Adrian followed with his hands bound behind his back.

Because the emperor was taking care that they not die from putrefaction before the torments prepared for them, Adrian was presented to him. Remaining in his confession, he was beaten most severely by four soldiers with hard pieces of wood and lacerated until his entrails poured out. Stretched upon the wood in this condition, he was enclosed in prison with the others. He was a delicate young man twenty-eight years old.

Blessed Natalia reported each of his replies to the martyrs. She comforted him as much as she could while he lay on his back bound with iron. The saints too, lying upon the pavement, crept toward him on their hands and offered him a kiss together with holy admonitions.

When the emperor heard that many matrons diligently ministered to them, he angrily commanded that they no longer be allowed to enter. Saint Natalia then cut off her hair. Ministering to them in male dress, she strengthened the other women to do the same by her example.

She asked this of her husband: that when he was in glory, he would make his first prayer for her, so that the Lord, keeping her untouched, would call her from this world very soon.

Hearing again what the matrons had done, the emperor ordered an anvil brought so that they might perish with their legs broken upon it.

Seeing the ministers come, Natalia feared that her husband Adrian might be terrified by the punishments of the others. She asked them to begin with him before the rest were punished.

When his feet had been cut off and his legs broken, Natalia asked him to permit his hand to be cut off, so that he might be equal to the other saints who had suffered more things.

When this was done and Adrian had emitted his spirit, the other saints voluntarily stretched out their feet to the executioners and in the same manner passed to the Lord.

At Caesar’s command, the ministers carried their bodies to a furnace to be burned and cast them into the fire. Suddenly an earthquake occurred and so great a tempest arose in the air that a multitude of the ministers abandoned the bodies and fled, while many expired.

When the fire had been extinguished by rain, the faithful, together with the women, seized the unharmed bodies, carried them by ship to Constantinople, and buried them there. The Church celebrates their feast on the sixth day before the Ides of September.

Natalia returned home, having with her the hand of Saint Adrian as the consolation of her life. Without anyone’s knowledge, she kept it honorably at the head of her little bed.

A certain tribune asked the emperor that Natalia be given to him in marriage, for she was exceedingly beautiful, very noble, and heaped with riches. When matrons spoke to her about this matter, she said that she rejoiced. As though to prepare herself, but in truth to flee, she obtained a delay of three days.

Meanwhile, in her chamber, she entreated God with tears that she might not be defiled. She fell asleep from sorrow and sadness. Behold, one of the holy martyrs stood beside her and gently comforted her. When she asked about her husband, he said that Adrian had appeared first of all before Christ’s sight.

“But arise,” he said, “board a little ship, and sail to where our bodies are. There God will visit you and lead you to us.”

Waking, she boarded a ship with other Christians.

When the tribune who sought to have her as his wife learned this, he too boarded a ship and pursued them with many companions in order to seize them. But a tempest arose by God’s will. Many of his companions were drowned, and he himself barely escaped.

At midnight the devil, appearing in the deceptive form of a shipmaster, cried to those who were with Natalia and asked where they were going.

They replied: “We are sailing from Nicomedia to Byzantium.”

He said: “You are going astray. Proceed to the left, so that you may sail more directly.”

When they had changed the sails, Saint Adrian appeared to them, seated in the ship, and warned them to sail as before lest they perish.

Natalia recognized her holy husband and rejoiced greatly when she learned that he was going before them.

At last they disembarked and came to the house where the bodies of Adrian and his companions had been secretly buried. While Natalia prayed there and fell asleep from the labor of the journey, Saint Adrian appeared, greeted her, and commanded her to come to eternal rest.

Waking, she related this to those standing nearby, bade them farewell, and emitted her spirit. The faithful received her body and buried it beside the saints’ bodies. Many renounced everything and served God there forever.

Saints Cyriacus, Largus, and Smaragdus. § XLI [read: XXXI]

Vincent relates in the Speculum Historiale, in the place cited above, from their acts, that Maximian, wishing to please Diocletian by building baths from the ground up in his name, compelled every Christian to the labor, some to the stones and others to digging sand.

Then a certain rich and powerful man named Crason [read: Thrason] supplied food to them in their affliction through the most Christian men Cyriacus, Sisinius, Largus, and Smaragdus.

Hearing this, the holy Pope Marcellus rejoiced and ordained Cyriacus and Sisinius deacons of the Church.

One day, while they were carrying upon their shoulders the food Crason [read: Thrason] supplied, pagan soldiers seized them and brought them before the tribune, who enclosed them in public custody.

When Maximian heard this, he ordered them to dig earth while in custody and carry it on their shoulders to its place. There was an old man named Saturninus there whom they helped to carry, and thus they bore both their own burdens and his.

Hearing this, the tribune reported to Maximian that they returned glory to God with hymns and praises. Maximian had Sisinius presented before him and questioned him on many matters. When Sisinius ultimately refused to sacrifice, he delivered him to the prefect Laoditius [read: Laodicius].

After detaining Sisinius in prison for seven days, Laodicius had the prison official Apronianus bring him out. Suddenly a light flashed from heaven, and from it came a voice: “Come, blessed of my Father; receive the kingdom of God that…” and so forth.

Terrified at this voice, Apronianus fell at Sisinius’s feet. Baptized by him, he came with him to the prefect and said with tears: “Why does the devil incite you to exercise such evils against God’s servants?”

The prefect said: “Have you too become a Christian?”

Apronianus replied: “Woe is me, because I have wasted my days.”

The prefect said: “Truly, you will waste your days,” and ordered him beheaded.

He then ordered Sisinius and Saturninus thrust back into custody. Many gentiles who came to them were baptized.

After this, barefoot and bound in chains, they were brought before Loaditius [read: Laodicius]. He ordered a tripod brought so that they might offer incense to the divine majesties.

When blessed Saturninus saw it, he said: “May the Lord of the gentiles crush it.” Immediately the bronze tripod dissolved like mud.

Seeing this, two soldiers, Papias and Maurus, cried: “Truly great is the Lord Jesus Christ whom these men worship.”

The angry prefect ordered their faces battered with stones and them thrust into prison.

He then ordered the aforementioned saints raised upon the rack and flames placed against their sides. They were also stretched with sinews and struck with scorpions. Hanging upon the rack, they gave thanks to God. At last they were beheaded and buried on the Salarian Way.

After Papias and Maurus had been presented before him twelve days later, the prefect ordered them beaten with clubs because they refused to sacrifice. They said nothing except: “Christ, help us, your servants who hope in you.” Then, raised from the pavement, they were beaten for a long time with leaded scourges and emitted their spirits.

When blessed Cyriacus had now been forgotten, many blind people received sight through him and the sick were healed.

At that time Artemia, Diocletian’s daughter, began to be troubled by a demon. When her father entered her presence, the demon cried through her: “Unless the deacon Cyriacus comes, I shall not go out.”

When Diocletian had sought him, Cyriacus entered her presence and said: “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command you, unclean spirit: depart from her.”

The demon replied: “If you wish me to depart, give me a vessel into which I may enter.”

Cyriacus said: “Behold my body; enter it if you can.”

The demon replied: “I cannot enter your vessel, because it is signed on every side.”

When Cyriacus pressed him, the demon cried: “O Cyriacus, if you cast me out, I shall make you go to Persia.”

When the demon had finally been cast out, Cyriacus baptized Artemia in the presence of her mother Serena, who also admonished her to love the Christian religion. Diocletian too began to hold Cyriacus in favor and gave him a house.

After a short time Sapor, king of the Persians, sent to Diocletian, asking him to send Cyriacus because his daughter was troubled by a demon. Asked by the empress Serena, Cyriacus departed with Largus and Smaragdus.

When they came to Persia and, at the king’s request, Cyriacus entered the daughter’s presence, the demon cried through her: “What is it, Cyriacus? Are you weary?”

He replied: “I am not weary, but rather governed in all things.”

The demon said: “Nevertheless, I have brought you where I wished.”

When Cyriacus saw the girl being tormented, he prostrated himself, prayed, and said with tears: “Christ, whom you confessed, commands you to depart from her.”

The demon replied: “Give me a vessel into which I may enter.”

Cyriacus said: “The God of gods, my Lord Jesus Christ, commands you to depart.”

Behold, foaming in the air with a great howl, the spirit cried: “O terrible name that constrains me to depart!”

The girl was freed and baptized, as were all her relatives, the king himself, and four hundred and twenty persons of both sexes from his household.

The king offered blessed Cyriacus many gifts. He accepted nothing except the bread and water which he used with his companions, and said: “We do not offer Christ’s grace for a price, but esteem it by faith.”

After forty-five days they returned and were honorably received by Diocletian.

After Diocletian’s death, Maximian, called his son and moved by zeal concerning his sister Artemia, ordered Cyriacus thrust into custody. On the day of his procession, he ordered Cyriacus dragged naked and bound in chains before his chariot.

Then blessed Pope Marcellus came to him and said: “I appeal to your piety: why do you slaughter God’s servants, who pray for the commonwealth and for your kingdom?”

Maximian ordered the bishop driven away and beaten with clubs.

To the vicar Carpasius he said: “Torture with diverse torments the sacrilegious Cyriacus, who by magical incantations persuades people to confess Christ, if he does not offer libations to the gods.”

Carpasius therefore ordered Saints Cyriacus, Largus, Smaragdus, and Crescentianus presented before him. When they refused to sacrifice, he had liquefied pitch poured upon Cyriacus’s head. Cyriacus cried aloud and glorified God.

He ordered Crescentianus suspended upon the rack with others. After Crescentianus had long been stretched with sinews, beaten with clubs, scraped with claws, and had flames placed against his sides, he delivered up his spirit.

Four days later Carpasius ordered the others, because they refused to sacrifice, beaten upon the scaffold with clubs and sinews. That same day he reported to Maximian what he had done against God’s saints.

Enraged, Maximian ordered everyone who was bound in custody with blessed Cyriacus beheaded. Twenty-one persons of both sexes were led with him. Afterward, by Maximian’s command, Cyriacus and the others were beheaded on the Salarian Way.

Blessed John gathered their bodies by night and committed Saint Cyriacus to burial on the seventh day before the Kalends of April. Maximian also killed his own sister Artemia because of Christianity.

Eight days later, blessed Marcellus came with the blessed matron Lucina. They embalmed the martyrs’ bodies with spices, and Lucina placed them in a panone [read: pavone, palanquin] with her eunuchs. They were translated with blessed Cyriacus to the Ostian Way and deposited there by her on the seventh [read: eighth] day of August.

Concerning this Maximian, called the son of Diocletian, Vincent says in the place cited above that he does not remember reading this elsewhere, but that a certain Maximian was Diocletian’s colleague in the empire is well attested.

Saints Macellinus [read: Marcellinus], Peter, and Artemius. § XXXII

At that same time in Rome, Macellinus [read: Marcellinus] the priest, Peter the exorcist, and Artemius also suffered. Vincent relates this from their acts in the Speculum Historiale, in the place cited above.

Artemius the jailer had often beaten this Peter for the faith of Christ and held him in chains. When Artemius’s daughter was troubled by a demon and her father lamented her daily, Peter told him that, if he believed in Christ, his daughter would immediately receive health.

Artemius said to him: “I marvel at your counsel, because your God cannot free you although you believe in him and endure so much for him. How, then, will he free my daughter if I believe?”

Peter replied: “God is able to free me, but he wishes me to pass through temporal suffering to everlasting glory.”

Artemius said: “If you wish me to believe in your Lord God, I shall double the chains and locks upon you; and if your God frees you, I shall believe in him, provided only that I first see my daughter healthy.”

[Running heads: Chapter One, Folio 260; Eighth Title.]

When Artemius had done this, Peter said: “Go to your house, for presently you will see me speaking with you.”

When Artemius had gone away and told his wife Candida, Saint Peter appeared, clothed in white garments and holding the sign of the cross in his hands. They immediately fell at his feet and confessed God’s power.

Their daughter was healed, and everyone who was in Artemius’s house was baptized. A great many people came to that house so that, seeing manifest miracles, they might believe in Christ and be baptized.

Peter went to the priest Marcellinus, who baptized them all.

Artemius then went to the other prisoners, permitting anyone who wished to become a Christian to leave as a free man. When this took place and the report reached Judge Serenus, he ordered all the prisoners brought before him.

Artemius called them all together, kissed their hands, and told them that those who wished to go to martyrdom should come intrepidly, while those who did not wish to do so should depart unharmed.

When the judge heard that Marcellinus and Peter had baptized those who were in prison, permitted them to depart, and themselves voluntarily remained in prison, by the angry judge’s command they were enclosed separately.

Marcellinus was laid naked upon broken glass and denied light and water. Peter, however, was confined in the tightest stocks in another prison.

An angel of the Lord came to Marcellinus, freed and clothed him, and led him to Peter. Freeing Peter too, the angel led them both to Artemius’s house, so that for seven days they might strengthen the people of the faithful gathered there and on the eighth day present themselves to the judge.

When Marcellinus and Peter were not found in prison, the judge ordered Artemius, his wife, and his daughter brought before him and, because they refused to sacrifice, buried in the earth.

When they came to the place—namely, the crypt in which Marcellinus was celebrating Mass while other Christians protected him—Marcellinus said to the unbelievers: “Behold, we were able to harm you, free Artemius with his wife and daughter, and ourselves depart free. But we did neither. What has incited you to do this?”

The enraged gentiles then struck Artemius with the sword. Casting down the mother with her daughter, they buried them beneath stones.

They led Marcellinus and Peter to the wood which was then called Black but is now called White, and there they beheaded them.

The man named Dorotheus who beheaded them saw their souls, clothed in brilliant garments and gems, carried to heaven by angels’ hands. Having thus become a Christian, he finally rested in peace.

Saints Sergius and Bacchus. § XXXIII

Under Emperor Maximian, Sergius and Bacchus also suffered, as Vincent relates after the foregoing accounts.

Because they were the chief officers of the palace, they were accused of Christianity before that same emperor. Not believing this, he led them with him to Jupiter’s temple. While he sacrificed there, he saw that they remained outside the temple because they refused to be defiled by idolatrous rites.

When it was discovered that they worshiped Christ, their military dress was removed. Loaded with chains, they were led throughout the whole city. Brought back to the palace in this condition, they confessed Christ most fully and, bound with exceedingly heavy chains, were sent to Duke Antiochus.

Strengthened by an angel, they disputed against the errors of the idols. Sergius was sent to prison, while Bacchus was stretched with rawhide thongs and lacerated until blood flowed and his abdomen and liver were ruptured.

Provoking the tyrant still more, Bacchus finally expired at the voice of God calling him. He was thrown outside the camp to be devoured by beasts, but birds protected his unharmed corpse from the beasts until it was given burial by the faithful.

That same night, while Sergius mourned that he had been bereft of his companion, Saint Bacchus appeared to him in military dress and with an angelic countenance. He admonished him not to fail from grief, but to follow him courageously and attain the glory prepared for him.

On the following day Antiochus could not bend Sergius by his words to the worship of the gods. He had Sergius shod with nailed boots and made him run nine miles before his chariot. Afterward, however, he was enclosed in prison, where an angel visited and healed him.

Again the tyrant had him run another nine miles before his chariot in nailed boots. Because he remained immovable in the faith, sentence of beheading was given. With many people mourning his death, he flew happily to God.

Primus and Felicianus were Roman citizens. The priests of the idols accused them, saying: “Unless you cause these men to sacrifice, you will be able to obtain no favors from the gods.”

Sought and found by the emperors’ command, they were enclosed in prison. Immediately strengthened by an angel, they were released, and after some days they were presented before the emperors.

Because they persisted in the faith, they were led to Hercules’s shrine. Refusing to sacrifice, they were cruelly lacerated and enclosed in prison, where an angel comforted them.

Brought out again and presented to Governor Promotus, they could not be overcome and were separated from one another.

The governor told Felicianus to take thought for his old age and sacrifice to the most unconquered gods. When he refused, he was beaten most severely with leaded scourges and said: “Although I now have eighty years of life, thirty years have passed since I learned the truth and chose to live for God, who can free me from your hands.”

The governor ordered him bound and nails driven into his hands and feet, saying: “You will remain in this condition until you consent to us.”

As Felicianus persisted there with a joyful countenance, the governor ordered him tortured in that place and given nothing for three days as he hung upon the stake. After three days he ordered him beaten with scourges and then taken back and placed in prison.

On the following day the tyrant ordered Primus brought before him and said: “Behold, your brother has consented to the emperors’ decrees and, because he sacrifices, is a great man in their palace. If you do likewise, you will be his companion.”

Primus replied: “Although you are a son of the devil, you have nevertheless spoken truly in part, for my brother consented not to empty men but to the heavenly Emperor. Through an angel teaching me, I know what you have done to him. Would that I may merit to be joined to him.”

The angered governor ordered him beaten with clubs. Lifted upon the rack, his sides were burned with torches. While this occurred and he continually sang psalms, the governor ordered him taken down and boiling lead poured into his mouth.

He also ordered Felicianus to be present so that, as though terrified by his brother’s suffering, he might consent to the sacrifices. Saint Primus, stretched out, drank all the boiling lead as though it were cold water and said: “Behold, my brother is not separated from me, whom you claimed had consented to the idols.”

The enraged governor ordered them led into the theater and two lions sent against them. Rushing at them with force, the lions immediately fell at their feet and began to caress them. Bears sent against them afterward did the same.

Of the people—more than twelve thousand had gathered for this spectacle—five hundred men believed with all their households. Therefore, seeing that the saints could not be overcome, the governor ordered them beheaded outside the amphitheater.

Their bodies were thrown to dogs and birds, but remained unharmed by them. At night Christians took and buried them. The solemnity of their passion is observed on the fifth day before the Ides of June.

Saints Vitus, Modestus, and Crescentia. § XXXIV

Vincent further relates in the place cited above, from their acts, concerning Vitus, Modestus, and Crescentia, that Vitus was the son of Hylas, a pagan and a sacrilegious man. Modestus was his tutor, and Crescentia was Vitus’s nurse.

While Vitus was still a boy, an angel of the Lord appeared to him, saying that the Lord had given the angel to guard him on every day of his life.

When he was twelve years old, believing in Christ and ministering to the needy as much as he could, his father Hylas, a nobleman but a pagan, studied how to turn him to the idols and often beat him when he refused.

Hearing this, Governor Valerian ordered Vitus brought before him. When he came and refused to sacrifice to the idols, the governor ordered him beaten with clubs. But the arms of those who wished to beat the boy immediately withered, and Valerian cried: “Woe is me, for I have lost my arm.”

Vitus replied: “Let your gods heal you if they can.”

The governor said: “Then you shall do it.”

Vitus replied: “In the Lord’s name, I shall,” and Valerian was immediately healed through his prayers.

The governor said to Vitus’s father: “Correct your son, lest he perish.”

His father led him home. By every delight, the musicians’ song, and the girls’ dance, he tried to change his mind.

When he had enclosed him in a chamber, seven angels appeared, comforting him and singing, “Holy, holy, holy,” and filling the chamber with a most pleasant fragrance.

Filled with that fragrance, his father and the household said: “The gods have come into the house.” Looking through the door, his father saw the angels standing there and was struck blind.

When he lost his eyes, the whole civitas lucania [read: civitas Lucana, Lucanian community] was moved. Valerian hurried there and asked him how this had occurred.

He replied: “Looking inside my son’s chamber, I saw fiery gods within, and I could not bear their countenance.”

The father approached Jupiter’s temple, offered sacrifice to recover his health, and accomplished nothing. Commending himself to his son for the restoration of his sight, he asked for help.

Vitus said: “I know that you do not believe, but because of the people standing by you will be healed.”

When the father received his sight, he gave thanks to Jupiter. From then on he sought an opportunity to kill his son.

An angel appeared to Modestus and admonished him to go with Vitus to the harbor and, finding a little ship there, to cross to another region.

They went to the sea and found an angel in the form of a shipmaster, ready with a little vessel. Boarding it, they finally reached the place called Allectorius. When they came down upon the land, the angel disappeared.

While they remained there beside a certain river, food was supplied to them by eagles. They performed many miracles, and many people were baptized by them.

Meanwhile, Diocletian’s son, troubled by a demon, cried: “Unless Vitus the Lucanian comes, I shall not go out.”

After Vitus had been sought for a long time and found, they brought him to Rome. Brought to the demoniac, he freed him.

The emperor urged them to sacrifice to the gods. When they refused, they were thrust into prison, constricted by a very great weight of iron. But an angel appeared with immeasurable light and released them.

After this Vitus was brought out of prison and cast into a burning oven, but he emerged unharmed.

Next a lion was sent against him to devour him. Running up to him, it licked his feet. Because of this miracle many believed in Christ.

At last Vitus, Modestus, and Crescentia, who followed Vitus, were stretched upon the scaffold. Their bones were torn apart so that their entrails appeared.

A great earthquake occurred, together with thunder, from which the temples of the idols fell and killed many gentiles.

The saints, however, were found freed by an angel beside the river called Silex [read: Siler/Sele]. Praying there, they passed to the Lord. Their passion is celebrated on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of July.

Dorotheus and Gorgonius. § XXXV

Concerning Dorotheus and Gorgonius, as Eusebius attests in the Ecclesiastical History: when the flame of persecution, which took its beginning from the soldiers, had intensified its fires throughout peoples and priests, it is impossible to comprehend by number how many were made martyrs daily in nearly every city and province.

At Nicomedia, one of the nobles saw cruel edicts against God’s worshipers hanging in the forum. Kindled by the fervor of faith, while the people watched publicly, he laid his hand upon the book of the wicked law, pulled it down, and tore it apart before everyone, while Augustus and Caesar were staying in that same city.

When the deed of this religious and illustrious man was reported to them, they immediately raged against him with every kind of cruelty. Yet they could not bring it about that anyone saw him sorrowful amid the punishments. Rather, he had a joyful and cheerful countenance. When his entrails had now failed amid the torments, his spirit nevertheless rejoiced in his face. His torturers were all the more tortured by this, because they exhausted every kind of punishment upon him but could not see him sorrowful.

Afterward, one of Dorotheus’s companions, who served in the king’s chamber and had always been regarded with the affection given to children, complained too freely about the remembered martyr’s punishments. He himself was ordered brought forward publicly and compelled to sacrifice.

When he refused, he was ordered suspended and lacerated over his whole body with scourges. Because he remained immovable, with his entrails now stripped of skin, he was ordered drenched with vinegar and salt.

When he had bravely endured this kind of torment, he was ordered placed in the midst of a gridiron with coals beneath it. What remained of his body after the scourging was set upon it, and the fire was kindled not suddenly but slowly and little by little, so that the punishment might be prolonged.

The ministers of wickedness turned his body now this way, now that, renewing the torments, hoping to elicit consent from him. But he remained firm in faith and rejoiced in hope. When his flesh had been consumed and dissolved by the fire, he breathed out his final spirit in the faith.

Thus Peter—for this was his name—adorned by martyrdom on the fourth day before the Ides of March, truly proved to be an heir of Peter’s faith and name.

His instructor in discipline and master in the offices performed at the palace was Dorotheus, prefect of the king’s chamber. With him in office and equal in faith and magnanimity was Gorgonius. Through their excellent instruction, almost all the ministers of the chamber persevered vigilantly and freely in God’s faith.

When Dorotheus and Gorgonius saw Peter being tortured with such savage punishments, they steadfastly and freely said to the emperor: “Why, emperor, do you punish in Peter a conviction that thrives in us all? Why is that treated as a crime in him which we all confess? This is our faith, this our worship; our mind and conviction are one and the same.”

The emperor ordered them brought forward. After they had been afflicted with punishments like the earlier men, he finally ordered them killed by hanging from a noose.

[Running heads: Chapter One, Folio 261; Eighth Title.]

Then Autimus [read: Anthimus], bishop of that same city, also persevered in confessing the Lord and merited the glory of martyrdom by the cutting off of his head. Almost the whole multitude of his flock followed him as a good shepherd who went before them on the road of martyrdom.

Concerning Many Martyrs Together

Eusebius also says in the Ecclesiastical History that in those same days it happened at Nicomedia that some part of the palace was consumed by fire. Because the emperor suspected that this had been done by our people, he was kindled with fury and ordered all of them gathered in heaps, some slaughtered by the sword and others burned.

When the ministers asked each person whether perhaps they would sacrifice or wished to be dismissed, neither men nor women even allowed themselves to be questioned. Rather, they voluntarily rushed into the flames or competitively offered their necks to the swords.

When the excess of cruelty now horrified the spectators, the ministers of wickedness carried part of the people in little boats into the middle of the sea and there cast into the deep those who persisted in the conviction of faith.

Cruelty burned so fiercely among them that they even dug up imperial servants who had been made martyrs and buried, and cast their bodies into the sea, saying: “Lest perhaps they be made gods of the Christians and those who refused to adore our gods should adore our servants.” For they think that among us divine honor is bestowed upon martyrs.

While these things were being done at Nicomedia, Haut [read: Haud]—no less vigorously—in the province of Melitene and in Syria were all the leaders of the churches compelled by imperial edicts to be thrust into prisons and bound in chains.

Together with them, men and women from the people, noble and ignoble, were seized. Everywhere there was a pitiable spectacle: suddenly silence and solitude were found in the city, while the prisons were crammed full.

When word reached the rulers that the prisons were overflowing and that the punishments of the innocent left no place for criminals, new edicts were again sent: if anyone among those confined wished to sacrifice, he might depart free; but anyone who refused should die by diverse kinds of punishment.

Who could comprehend how great multitudes of martyrs then arose throughout the individual provinces? We cannot worthily commemorate even the contests of those which we ourselves saw in Palestine or Tyre. For we relate not what we heard but what we beheld with our own eyes.

Diverse kinds of torments were devised in succession. First they were torn over the whole body with scourges; after this they were delivered to the beasts, and every cruelty of people, beasts, and elements was armed against them.

For these things, God’s worshipers were placed naked in the middle of the arena. Art increased the fury of the beasts within their cages. Thus made fiercer than themselves, they burst from their enclosures, suddenly filled the stadium, surrounded the congregation of martyrs situated in the middle, went around it repeatedly, and prowled about it. Sensing that the protection of divine power was present with them, they ascendunt [read: abscedunt, withdrew] far from the martyrs.

But immediately the fury restrained in the beasts passed into the people. No spectator perceived God’s present power or the divine aid attending them.

Men whose craft it was were sent to incite the beasts against those whom divine grace defended. But to show everyone that ferocity was not lacking in the beasts, but that divine protection attended God’s worshipers, the beasts tore apart with incredible speed those very men sent to incite them.

When none of them now dared approach, the martyrs themselves were ordered to provoke the beasts against themselves with moving hands. But not even in this way could they be made to suffer. For if some beast happened to be roused, when it came to the nearest martyr, it immediately turned back upon itself and retreated.

Then immense astonishment and fear invaded everyone seated at the spectacle. Yet God was still tested by human beings. Other criminals were ordered subrigi [read: subigi, cast] before the beasts, and all of them perished in a moment, torn apart and scattered into the air by the beasts.

Even when roused in this way, the beasts caused God’s worshipers no injury, for the divine Spirit fortified them like the strongest walls.

Those beasts were ordered removed and others sent in. When these likewise brought nothing sorrowful upon the saints, the people, fiercer than the beasts, were sent against the martyrs and accomplished by swords what they had been unable to accomplish by beasts.

So that in every respect they might show themselves more wicked than beasts, they prohibited the corpses from being committed to the earth and ordered them given to the waves.

Saint Lucy, Virgin and Martyr. § XXXVI

Saint Lucy, virgin and martyr, suffered in the city of Syracuse in Sicily at the end of the reign of Diocletian and Maximian, as Vincent relates in the Speculum Historiale, Book XIV, chapter two.

When the name of the blessed martyr Agatha became widely celebrated throughout Sicily, it happened that Lucy, a most noble virgin of Syracuse, went with others to the virgin’s tomb, her mother accompanying her. Her mother had suffered a flow of blood for four years and could be cured by no physicians’ remedy.

While mother and daughter lay praying together before the tomb and sought aid with tears, Lucy was overtaken by sleep. She saw Agatha standing amid angels, adorned with gems, and saying to her: “My sister Lucy, virgin devoted to God, why do you seek from me what you yourself can immediately provide for your mother? For your mother’s faith has come to her aid. And just as the city of the Catanians is exalted through me, so through you the city of the Syracusans is adorned by the Lord Jesus Christ, because in your virginity you have prepared a pleasing dwelling for Christ.”

Awakening after hearing these things, Lucy said to her mother: “By the one who has healed you through her prayers, I beg you not to name a carnal bridegroom to me. Instead, give to my Lord Jesus Christ—the author of my integrity and virginity—everything you were going to give me as I went to the author of corruption.”

Her mother replied: “You know better than I that everything which is mine can become nothing. First close my eyes, and then do whatever pleases you with these possessions.”

Lucy said: “The person who gives God what she cannot take with her is not sufficiently dear to God. If, however, you wish to be pleasing to him, give him now what you can use while you live.”

As the virgin spoke in this way with her mother, property was sold every day and every day the proceeds were spent upon the needs of the poor.

When this came to the knowledge of her betrothed, he brought an action before the tribunal of the consular official Pascasius, saying that his betrothed was a most Christian woman and acted contrary to the laws of the august rulers.

Pascasius rebuked her and began to invite her to the demons’ sacrifices.

She replied: “This is an undefiled sacrifice: to visit orphans and widows in their tribulation.”

He said: “Words will cease when blows are reached.”

She replied: “God’s words cannot cease. For he himself says, ‘It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.’”

Pascasius said: “Then the Holy Spirit is in you?”

She replied: “Those who live chastely are the temple of the Holy Spirit. For the Apostle says, ‘You are God’s temple, and the Holy Spirit dwells in you.’”

Pascasius said: “I shall have you taken to a brothel, so that when you have been handled there the Holy Spirit may flee from you.”

Lucy replied: “The body is never defiled culpably except by the mind’s consent. For if you have me violated against my will, my chastity will be doubled for my crown.” This judgment, as very notable, is set down by Gratian in Cause XXXII, Question V, section one.

Pascasius then delivered her to procurers, saying: “Invite the people to her, and let her be abused until she is reported dead to me.”

When the procurers began to try to drag her to the brothel, the Holy Spirit fixed her in place with such weight that she could not be moved from there in any way.

Many people approached and tried to drag her together, but failed in their sweat. They also put ropes around her hands and feet, and everyone began to pull her, but she remained immovable like a mountain.

Many pairs of oxen were added so that, bound by the ropes, she might be dragged by them, but she could not be moved at all.

Distressed and failing from grief, Pascasius had a great fire kindled around her, so that pitch, resin, and boiling oil were cast upon her.

She stood immovable and said: “I asked my Lord Jesus Christ that this fire not be permitted to master me, and I sought a delay of my martyrdom so that I might remove the fear of suffering from believers and remove the voice of insult from unbelievers.”

Pascasius’s friends could not bear his anguish and had a sword plunged into her throat. Though struck, she spoke for as long as she wished and addressed the surrounding people, saying: “I announce to you that peace has been given to God’s Church, that Diocletian has been cast from the throne, and that Maximian has died today.”

As she spoke these and other things, Pascasius was led in iron bonds before her eyes. Reports from the people had run to the senate that he had plundered the province. Brought to Rome and heard by the senate, he received a capital sentence.

The virgin was not moved from the place where she had been struck, nor did her spirit depart from her until priests first came and gave her the sacred mysteries, namely the Eucharist. When everyone said “Amen,” she emitted her spirit.

Another Saint Lucia, Widow. § XXXVII

The same Vincent in Book XIII relates from her acts concerning a certain other martyr named Lucia—not a virgin but a widow—who suffered at Rome with Geminianus in the time of Diocletian, though in earlier years and under the father of this Pascasius.

This holy woman had remained in widowhood for thirty-six years and at the time of her martyrdom was seventy-five years old.

When the emperors’ edict against the Christians had been issued, she said to her son, named Cuppius [read: Euprepius]: “Behold, the time is now prepared for the palm. Let us abandon the images, which can destroy us but cannot free us, and adore the Lord Jesus Christ, who can save and condemn soul and body.”

Her son replied: “Mother, you are mad to call him God who was scourged and crucified with thieves.”

She rebuked him for speaking such things against his Maker. Her son then approached the emperors and accused his mother of Christianity.

Brought forward by the emperors’ command, after many interrogations she remained most steadfast in confessing the faith and said: “I am prepared for the beasts, the fire, and whatever punishments you desire.”

Enclosed in prison, she prayed. A marvelous fragrance spread, and a voice was heard: “Rejoice in the Lord, rejoice, because you have merited to receive what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the human heart.”

As she gave thanks she was lulled to sleep, and afterward the Lord comforted her.

To abbreviate the history, which is quite long and marvelous: the emperor, sitting at his tribunal outside the city because his house or palace had collapsed, had her brought from prison, stretched out, and battered with knotted clubs.

But the man beating her was turned to stone, and the emperor, withered almost to death, cried: “God Jupiter, help me!” Immediately Jupiter himself fell from his place and was shattered.

Lucia said with a smile: “Let your god Jupiter heal you.”

The emperor said: “Make me well.”

She replied: “If you believe, I shall do so.”

The emperor said: “By the Crucified himself, I shall believe if you heal me.”

Lucia said: “I know your deceit. But because you have named the Crucified, I shall show mercy to you.”

He immediately became well and cried: “I give you thanks, Jupiter!” Running to Jupiter’s temple, he worshiped; the temple split and was torn apart.

Afterward he ordered Lucia enclosed in prison. He had a bronze pot prepared, filled with pitch, lead, and resin; with fire placed beneath it, he had its contents liquefied. She was cast naked into it and left there for three days and nights, but she was harmed in no way.

Hearing this, the emperor ordered her loaded with iron and lead and led around every street of the city.

As she was led, she happened to pass near the house of a certain noble named Geminianus, who had many images in his house.

While she was driven past swiftly, behold, a snow-white dove descended from heaven and three times made the sign of the cross above Geminianus’s head. Looking into heaven, he saw it opened and the seat of God.

Immediately pricked in heart, he abandoned everything and ran to the place where the saint was being tortured. He fell at her feet and said: “I recognize you as the mother of grace whom the Lord has shown to me. For when you passed before the door of my house, I looked into heaven and saw the one in whom I must believe.”

At midnight a certain holy priest named Prothasius, admonished by an angel, approached the prison where both were held. When the locks opened, a great light appeared and a most pleasant fragrance came forth. A spring flooded within the prison, and Geminianus was baptized by Prothasius. Saint Lucia raised him from the font, and they began to be one in soul and spirit, enduring one contest for the Lord.

After three days both were brought before Diocletian’s tribunal. When Saint Lucia answered nothing under questioning, Saint Geminianus made the sign of the cross upon himself and began to rebuke the emperor very sharply for raging so greatly against Christ and Christians.

The emperor, roaring like a lion, ordered them afflicted with every torment. Amid the torments an angel appeared to them and placed crowns of gold and gems upon them.

When the saints did not fail from the torments, Diocletian withdrew and left a certain man named Pyropogon as his vicar.

Pyropogon ordered everyone to come to worship the gods at a designated place, namely the Lateran. When Saint Lucia and Geminianus came to the place, they cried: “The idols of the gentiles are silver and gold,” and so forth.

[Running heads: Chapter One, Folio 262; Eighth Title.]

The judge ordered their necks battered. An earthquake occurred; several buildings fell, and those ruins crushed the judge together with many others. The saints, however, remained unharmed.

Then, after a year, angels took them and carried them to Sicily. Coming to a certain river of deep waters, by God’s power and after offering prayer they crossed over its waters with dry footsteps.

When they came to a certain place full of evil spirits, all those wicked spirits departed from the place with a cry. There they healed many sick people.

But Judge Apofrasius had those whom they had healed—and who magnified both them and God—beheaded. Because of this crime, he was seized by the devil and ended his life most wretchedly.

At last, when Saint Lucia was sought for death by the consular official Pascasius, father of the Pascasius who made the virgin Lucy a martyr in the city of Syracuse, as was said, she was placed in prayer and returned her spirit to God. Geminianus was beheaded by command of the tyrant.

The same Vincent in Book XIII of the Speculum Historiale relates concerning a certain other virgin and martyr of Roman nationality, named not Lucia but Luccia.

She was seized by the people of a certain man named Antria, king of the barbarians, and led into that country as a captive. That barbarian king wished volare [read: violare, to violate] her.

She said to him: “Do not use force against me, for I have a great bridegroom who will avenge my injury upon you.” She was a Christian and spoke of Christ as her bridegroom.

The angered king said: “Who is your bridegroom, or what power has he, that he may avenge this injury?”

She replied confidently: “I have as my defender the God to whom I have devoted myself, who is in heaven and has power over all flesh.”

Hearing these things, the king was terrified and began to wish to honor her as a goddess. He immediately ordered a private chamber made for her and maidens given for her service.

Day and night she devoted herself to God in vigils and prayers, asking especially for the prosperous condition of that king and his house.

The barbarian king’s devotion toward her increased daily. Whenever he went out to wars, he asked her to petition her God for victory over his enemies. Because of this, through her prayers he always returned victorious from battle.

When twenty years there had been completed, it was revealed to Luccia that she should return to the city and there complete her course through martyrdom.

When she related the vision to the king, the king, inspired by God, said: “If you withdraw yourself from here, it is not expedient for me to remain, for my adversaries, whom I overcame whenever you prayed, will come and kill me.”

She replied: “If it pleases you, come. For I believe in my God that he will adopt you as his servant.”

The king therefore disposed of everything, left the governance of the kingdom to his son, abandoned all things, and came to Rome with Christ’s handmaid.

Diocletian’s persecution was already raging. After a few days Luccia was seized and brought to punishment.

Hearing this, Antria voluntarily hurried forward and placed his neck beneath the sword with hers, professing himself a Christian. Thus both were beheaded and received into paradise, together with twelve others, on the seventh day before the Kalends of July.

The Passion of Saint Catherine. § XXXVIII

The passion of Saint Catherine occurred a little after the reign of Diocletian, namely under Maxentius, son of Maximian Herculius. As Hugh says, he was made emperor by the praetorian soldiers—or rather, he usurped the empire. Constantine the Great made war against him and overcame him, as will be stated below.

This persecutor of Christians, Maxentius, entered Alexandria and compelled everyone to sacrifice to the idols, afflicting those who refused with diverse torments.

In that city was the most devout virgin blessed Catherine, beautiful in body but more beautiful in faith. She was the only daughter of King Costus. Orphaned of her parents, she had succeeded to their kingdom and riches. She was very learned in the liberal arts and eighteen years old.

While she was residing in her palace, she heard a considerable tumult of people and the lowing of animals that were being led for sacrifice to the temple where the emperor remained intent upon sacrifices.

Learning the cause of this din and clamor, she commended herself to God and, accompanied by a fitting household, entered the temple to see the emperor. She reproved him for the vain worship of the gods and made many assertions concerning the incarnation of God’s Son.

Caesar, astonished and unable to answer her words, said: “Permit us to finish our sacrifice, woman, and afterward we shall give you answers.” He ordered her taken to the palace and guarded with every diligence.

When the sacrifice had been completed, he returned to the palace and ordered Catherine presented before him.

As she stood there, he said: “We have heard your eloquence and marveled at your wisdom. But, being occupied in the gods’ sacrifices, we could not fully understand your discourse. First, therefore, explain your lineage again.”

The saint replied: “I shall acknowledge my lineage to you. I am Catherine, daughter of King Costus. Although born in purple and educated to no slight degree in the liberal disciplines, I nevertheless contemned all things and fled to our Lord Jesus Christ.

“I assert that the gods you worship are demons and can help neither you nor others. O how unhappy, therefore, are the worshipers of such divine powers, who, when invoked, are not present in need, do not assist in tribulation, and do not defend in dangers.”

The angered emperor said: “If it is as you assert, then the whole world is wrong and you alone speak the truth. Even if you were an angel or a heavenly power, no one ought to believe you, much less since you are a frail woman.”

She replied: “I beg you, Caesar, do not permit yourself to be overcome by fury, for dire disturbance does not remain in the mind of a wise person.”

Seeing that he could not resist her wisdom, the emperor ordered the virgin guarded. He immediately sent messengers throughout diverse places so that all grammarians, rhetoricians, and men most learned in worldly wisdom who excelled in reputation should gather at Alexandria. They would receive great rewards if they overcame a certain girl who spoke against the worship of the gods.

Fifty wise men therefore came from diverse cities and gathered in Alexandria. When they asked the emperor more particularly about the cause, he said: “There is among us one girl of incomparable judgment and prudence who refutes all our wise men and asserts that our gods are demons. If you overcome her, you will return to your own homes with great honor.”

One of them replied with indignant and wrathful voice: “O great counsel of the emperor, who has summoned so many wise men from such remote regions for a contest with one girl, when one of our little pupils could most easily have confounded her.”

The emperor replied: “I do indeed possess the power to compel her to my sacrifices, but I judged it better that she be refuted by reason.”

They said: “Let the girl be brought forward, so that, overcome in her rashness, she may acknowledge that she has never seen wise men.”

The impending contest of disputation was announced to Catherine. She commended herself and her cause wholly to the Lord. An angel comforted her so that she might act steadfastly, predicting that not only would she not be overcome by the wise men, but that she would overcome them all, convert them to the faith, and send them through martyrdom to heaven.

When Catherine had been brought before those orators, she said to the emperor: “By what judgment, emperor, do you set fifty orators against one girl, promising that they will be rewarded for victory, while you compel me to fight without hope of reward? Yet the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the hope and crown of those who contend for him, will be my reward.”

In the disputation the wise men strove to show that it was impossible for God to become a human being or to suffer. By effective persuasion the virgin demonstrated the contrary: that it was not impossible for God to become human and that he endured the passion, not in his deity, but in the flesh he had assumed. She attested that this was also found in the books of the philosophers and sibyls.

“For Plato too,” she said, “maintains that God is to be circled about—that is, with respect to the incarnation—and cut down—that is, in the passion, through the separation of soul from body. The Sibyl too says: ‘Blessed is that God who hangs from the lofty wood.’”

As the virgin disputed with the wise men by the most effective reasons and concluded by manifest demonstrations that the gods were false, they were astonished. Having nothing to say in opposition, they became completely mute.

The emperor was filled with excessive fury and began to reprove them for permitting themselves to be so shamefully overcome by one girl.

One of them, more learned than the others, replied: “Know, emperor, that never before could anyone stand against us in disputation without being immediately overcome. But this girl, in whom God’s Spirit speaks, has turned us to such wonder that we neither know how nor dare at all to say anything against Christ. Therefore, emperor, we steadfastly confess that unless you bring forward a more convincing judgment in favor of the gods we have worshiped until now, behold, we all turn to Christ.”

Hearing this, the emperor, drunk with fury, ordered a fire prepared in the middle of the city and all those orators burned.

In the interval the virgin comforted them and instructed them in the faith as well as she could. When they grieved that they would die without baptism, she consoled them, explaining that their passion would be their baptism and crown of glory.

The fifty wise men were cast into the flames and there returned their spirits to God. Their bodies, however, were unburned—indeed, even their hair and garments remained unharmed.

After these things the tyrant addressed Catherine: “O noble virgin, take thought for your youth. If you sacrifice to the gods, you will be second after the queen in my palace, and an image of you will be fashioned in the middle of the city and adored by all as a goddess.”

The virgin replied: “Cease to say such things, which it is a crime even to think. I have handed myself over as a bride to Christ. He is my glory, he my love, he my sweetness. Neither flatteries nor torments will be able to recall me from his love.”

Raging in fury, he ordered her stripped and beaten with scorpions. After she had been beaten, he ordered her enclosed in a dark prison and tortured by hunger for twelve days without food or drink.

While she remained enclosed in prison, heavenly light poured forth and shone; fragrance spread; and the sweet hosts of heaven sang praises. The bridegroom loved the bride. The Savior visited her, saying: “Acknowledge, daughter, your Creator, for whose love you have undergone a laborious contest. Be steadfast, for I am with you.”

During those days the Lord supplied her food through a dove.

Meanwhile the king had departed beyond the borders of the region because certain affairs of the kingdom pressed upon him. His wife the queen had heard marvelous things concerning the virgin and was kindled with a very great love for her. She disclosed to Porphyry, commander of the soldiers and a man most faithful in secret matters, her desire to have a conversation with the virgin. Since he also desired this, they agreed to enter secretly by night.

When the queen entered, she saw the place shining with marvelous brightness and angels anointing Catherine’s wounds.

Catherine began to preach the joys of eternal life promised to the faithful. Teaching the faith, she converted the queen to Christ and also predicted her martyrdom. Thus she prolonged the discourse until midnight.

Hearing these things, Porphyry fell at the virgin’s feet, believing in Christ, together with two hundred soldiers who heard these things from Porphyry.

When his affairs had been completed, Maxentius returned to Alexandria and asked about the virgin. The ministers were sent to the prison to report what had happened to her and whether she was alive. They reported that she was alive and healthy, and he had her brought before him.

Seeing her vigorous and beautiful, though he believed her consumed by hunger, and thinking that the ministers had supplied her food contrary to his command, he began to wish to torture the guards.

Catherine, pitying them, said: “I received food not from human beings but from my Lord Jesus Christ.”

The emperor said to her: “Recall what I told you. We do not desire to retain you as a servant. Rather, you will triumph as a powerful and chosen queen in my kingdom.”

She replied: “Pay attention, I beg you, and discern by the true reason of your own judgment which I ought more to choose: one who is powerful, eternal, glorious, and beautiful, or one who is weak, mortal, ignoble, and deformed.”

The indignant tyrant said: “Choose one of two things: either sacrifice to the gods or die by diverse punishments.”

She replied: “Do not delay whatever torments you can devise, for I desire to offer my flesh and blood to Christ, just as he offered himself for me.”

A certain prefect then advised the tyrant to have four wheels made within four days, surrounded by iron saws and very sharp nails. Revolving against one another, so horrible an apparatus would cut apart the virgin placed upon it and instill fear in the other worshipers of Christ.

When the wheels had been prepared and the virgin was to be placed upon them, she prayed to the Lord that for the praise of his name and the conversion of those standing around he would scatter that machine.

This was suddenly accomplished. The machine broke apart with such force that four thousand gentiles, struck by its fragments, perished.

The queen, who watched these things from a window above, could no longer conceal herself. She descended and reproved the emperor more harshly for so great a savagery.

Perceiving that she had converted to the faith, the tyrant, carried away by furies, commanded that, if she refused to sacrifice to the gods, her breasts should first be torn off and then she should be beheaded by the attendants.

As she was led to punishment, she commended herself to Catherine so that Catherine would pray for her.

Catherine comforted her, saying: “Do not fear, O queen beloved by God, for today you will exchange a temporal kingdom for an eternal one, and in place of a mortal bridegroom you will receive an immortal one.”

[Running heads: Chapter One, Folio 263; Eighth Title.]

Made steadfast by these words, the queen urged the ministers not to delay what they had been ordered to do. They tore off her breasts outside the city and beheaded her. Porphyry buried her body.

On the following day the tyrant asked who had buried the queen’s body. When he wished to torture certain people to discover the matter, Porphyry leapt into their midst and said: “I am the one who buried the queen and received Christ’s faith.”

Maxentius became senseless and emitted a terrible bellow, saying: “O wretched and pitiable me! Behold, Porphyry, who was the only guardian of my soul and the consolation of all my labor, has been deceived.”

When he related this sorrowfully to his soldiers, they replied to him: “We too are Christians and are prepared to die for Christ.”

Maxentius, drunk with wrath, ordered all of them beheaded with Porphyry and their bodies thrown to dogs.

At last, summoning Catherine, he said: “Although by magical art you caused the queen to die, nevertheless, if you return to your senses, you will be first in my palace. Today, therefore, either sacrifice to the gods or lose your head.”

She replied: “Do whatever you have conceived in your mind. You will see me prepared to suffer everything for Christ’s name.”

When sentence of beheading had been given against her and she came to the place of her passion, she prayed, saying: “O hope and salvation of believers, O glory and honor of virgins, good King Jesus, I beg you that whoever remembers my passion and invokes me either at the departure of the soul or in any tribulation may obtain the effect of your propitiation.”

A voice came from heaven: “Come, my beloved. Behold, heaven’s gate is open to you. I also promise help from heaven to those who keep the memory of your passion.”

She was beheaded, and milk flowed from her body in place of blood. Angels took her body from that place and carried it to Mount Sinai, twenty days’ journey distant, and buried it honorably there.

Oil is said to flow from her bones and heal the sick. She suffered about the year of the Lord 310.

Blessed Agnes. § XXXIX

Most blessed Agnes, whose passion celebrated at Rome Ambrose describes, lived around these times, as is evident from her history.

Born of noble Roman citizens, she was young in body, being thirteen years old, but aged in mind; beautiful in face but more beautiful in faith.

While returning from school, she was loved by the prefect’s son. He promised her gems and innumerable riches if she would not refuse consent to marriage with him.

Agnes is reported to have given him this reply, Ambrose says: “Depart from me, food of death, for I have already been forestalled by another lover. His mother is a virgin; his father knows no woman. The sun and moon marvel at his beauty. Angels serve him. His resources never fail; his riches never wither. By his fragrance the dead revive; by his touch the sick are strengthened. His love is chastity; his touch, holiness; union with him, virginity. His nobility is loftier, his power stronger, his appearance more beautiful, his love sweeter, and every grace more elegant.

“He has pledged my right hand with his ring and encircled my neck with precious stones. He has clothed me in a robe woven with gold and adorned me with immense necklaces. He has placed a sign upon my face, so that I may admit no lover other than him. His blood has adorned my cheeks. His body has now been joined to my body. He showed me incomparable treasures which he promised he would give me if I persevered in him.”

Hearing these things, the mad young man was laid upon his bed, and the physicians disclosed that he was sick from love.

When pater virginis [read: prefectus, the prefect] repeated these same things to her and she asserted that she could not violate fidelity to her first bridegroom, the prefect, father of the young man, began to inquire who that bridegroom was of whose power Agnes boasted.

When someone asserted that she called Christ her bridegroom, the prefect first pressed her with flattering words and then with terrors.

Agnes said to him: “Do whatever you wish, for you will not be able to obtain what you seek.”

The prefect said to her: “Choose one of two things: either sacrifice to the gods with the virgins of the goddess Vesta, or fornicate with prostitutes.”

Agnes replied: “I shall neither sacrifice to your gods nor be polluted by the filth of others, for I have with me an angel of the Lord as guardian of my body.”

The prefect ordered her stripped and led naked to a brothel. But the Lord gave such thickness to her hair that she was better covered by her hair than by garments.

When Agnes entered the place of shame, she found the angel of the Lord prepared. He surrounded the place with excessive brightness and prepared for her a most white robe.

The prefect’s son came to the brothel with other young men and was the first to invite them to approach her. Thus the brothel became a place of prayer, so that whoever entered departed purer than he had been when he entered, because he gave honor to the immense light—immenso lumine … honore [read: immenso lumini … honorem]. Those who entered, terrified and pricked by the miracle, returned.

Calling them wretched and mad, the prefect’s son entered raging. When he wished to touch her, he was suffocated by the devil and expired, rushing into the light without giving honor to God.

Hearing this, the prefect came to her with great lamentation and inquired more diligently into the causes of his death.

Questioned, Agnes replied: “The one whose will he wished to fulfill received power over him and killed him. For his companions, who were terrified when they saw the miracle, returned unharmed.”

The prefect said: “It will appear from this that you did not do it by magical arts if you can obtain that he be raised.”

She replied: “Although your perfidy does not merit this, nevertheless, so that the power of our Lord Jesus Christ may be acknowledged, withdraw from here so that I may pray.”

As she prayed, the young man was raised. Having been raised, he began to run throughout the city and cry: “True and one is the God whom the Christians worship, who raised me from the dead.”

Disturbed by this, the priests of the temples stirred up a sedition among the people, crying and saying: “Away with the sorceress! Away with the malefactor who changes minds and alienates souls!”

The prefect, astonished by the miracle, wished to free her, but, fearing proscription, he left his vicar behind. Because he could not free her, he departed sorrowfully.

The vicar Aspasius ordered her cast into a great fire. When this was done, the flame divided into two parts and burned the seditious people.

Aspasius then ordered a sword plunged into her throat. Thus the Bridegroom, white and ruddy, consecrated to himself his bride and martyr.

When Christians and her parents buried her body with joy, they scarcely escaped the pagans who threw stones at them.

Emerentiana, a virgin and her companion who was still a catechumen, stood beside her tomb and steadfastly reproved the troubling gentiles. They stoned her, and she was baptized in her own blood; hence the Church keeps her solemnity.

Immediately an earthquake, flashes, and lightning arose, so that very many pagans perished. Because of this, from then on those coming to Agnes’s tomb did not harm it.

On the eighth day, while her parents kept vigil beside the tomb in prayer, they saw a choir of virgins radiant in shining garments. Among them they saw blessed Agnes shining in a similar garment, with a lamb whiter than snow standing at her right.

She said to them: “See that you do not mourn me as though dead, but rejoice with me, because with all these I have received the most brilliant seats.”

Constantia, daughter of Constantine, was afflicted by severe leprosy. Hearing this vision, she went to Agnes’s tomb and applied herself to prayer.

When she fell asleep, she saw blessed Agnes in a dream saying to her: “If you believe in Christ, you will immediately be freed.”

Waking and believing, she was healed at once and made sound, bringing joy to her father and the whole household. Receiving baptism, she built a basilica over blessed Agnes’s body. Serving God there in virginity, by her example she consecrated many virgins there.

Blessed Margaret. § XL

Blessed Margaret, an Antiochene by nationality, was born of gentile parents and entrusted to a nurse. Diligently reared by her, when she reached adulthood she voluntarily had herself baptized.

Because of this she became very hateful to her father, a patriarch of the gentiles. Her mother having died, she remained with her nurse, guarding and pasturing her sheep.

When she reached the age of fifteen and was very beautiful in body, it happened one day that a certain unbelieving seneschal of the emperor named Olibrius passed through the places where she pastured the flock. Seeing the virgin, he burned violently with desire for her and ordered her brought before him.

When she had been presented, he asked her name, religion, and lineage.

She steadfastly replied that she was called Margaret, was noble in lineage, and Christian in religion.

Olibrius said: “The first two agree with you, but the third is exceedingly discordant: that a girl so beautiful and so noble that you are deservedly called Margaret should believe in a crucified man who could bring aid neither to himself nor to others.”

Margaret then answered so correctly and prudently concerning the Christians’ faith and the gentiles’ unbelief that, overcome by her reasons and ashamed, he ordered her bound and committed to prison.

On the following day she was brought before him and commanded either to consent to sacrifices or perish by diverse punishments.

When she refused, she was stripped, suspended, and lacerated with the sharpest rods until blood flowed and those beating her failed.

Strengthened by God’s power, she neither sighed nor groaned nor even assumed a sorrowful countenance.

Because she still preached the Lord, the governor thought himself mocked and ordered her flesh furrowed with iron combs down to the bones.

While this was done, the people wept for her, moved by compassion. The tyrant himself, as if advising her piously, urged her to give consent lest she lose so great a beauty of youth.

She said: “O evil counselors, this torture is the soul’s salvation.”

To the tyrant she said: “Shameless dog, insatiable lion, you have power over the flesh, but Christ preserves the soul.”

The tyrant said: “I shall no longer spare; I shall no longer show mercy. She mocks those who advise her, blasphemes the gods, and contemns torments.”

She was therefore returned to prison so that, after other punishments had been devised, she might be punished more harshly.

But the darkness was immediately irradiated with immeasurable light. The devil appeared in the form of a dragon as though about to devour her, but when she suddenly opposed the sign of the cross, he vanished. Jacobus de Voragine, however, calls this account of the dragon apocryphal.

The devil next appeared to her in human form to persuade her to consent to the governor and so escape harsher torments.

After praying, she recognized him as the devil, seized him by the head, cast him to the ground, and, placing her foot upon him, said: “Lie down, proud demon, beneath a woman’s feet.”

He cried: “O Margaret, you have mocked me enough. Permit me now to depart.”

She replied: “I shall not release you unless you tell me why you tempt Christians in so many ways.”

He answered that hatred against virtuous people was natural to him. Although he was often repelled by them, he nevertheless always stood hostile to them in the hope and desire of seducing them. He envied that the happiness he had lost was granted to us, and because he could not recover it, he strove to take it away from others.

When he had said these things and the virgin raised her foot, he immediately vanished like smoke.

On the following day the virgin was presented to the judge. Refusing to sacrifice in the presence of the people, she was stripped. Torches were applied to her sides, and her freshly lacerated flesh was burned to its innermost parts, so that everyone marveled how so frail a girl could endure such torments.

But the senseless judge ordered a cask filled with cold water and Margaret, bound, held in it for a long time, so that the changed punishment would be graver rather than a refreshment.

When she was put into the water, a great earthquake occurred, by which all who were present were disturbed. The virgin emerged unharmed, and many were converted to Christ by this miracle.

Fearing that the number of believers would be increased by miracles of this kind, the tyrant ordered the virgin beheaded. He also had those who had converted to the faith killed by various punishments.

Blessed Margaret was brought to the place of her passion. She prayed first for herself, then for all Christians, also for her persecutors, and furthermore for women in childbirth who commended themselves to her, that they might receive assistance. She was beheaded on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of August.

It is therefore marvelous that some celebrate her feast eight days earlier. This perhaps is because, according to them, she completed her martyrdom on such a day. Under which emperor she suffered is not expressly stated, according to Vincent in Book XIV of the Speculum Historiale.

Under the aforementioned tyrant Olibrius, Vincent in the place cited above tells of a certain virgin named Regina, the only daughter of a gentile father, fifteen years old, who was tortured for the faith by almost similar torments and finally beheaded.

Saint Christopher. § XLI

Concerning Saint Christopher, about whom it is likewise uncertain at what time he suffered, Vincent relates in the place cited above that he was tall in stature and terrible in countenance.

Having become a Christian, he came to Samos, a city of Lycia where a certain persecutor of the faithful named Dagnes reigned. Because he did not know the language of that region, by prayer he obtained the ability both to understand and to speak their language.

Coming to the place where martyrs were being tortured, he reproved the judges and torturers for their cruelty against the Christians. Because of this, one of the judges struck him with a slap.

[Running heads: Chapter One, Folio 264; Eighth Title.]

Christopher said to him: “If I were not a Christian and did not wish to suffer injuries and torments for God, I would at once have avenged the injury done to me.”

When the judge had reported this to the king, Christopher meanwhile addressed the people. During his preaching he planted in the earth a certain staff that he carried in his hand, and, for God’s honor and the people’s conversion, obtained that it produce flowers and fruit. At this miracle many were converted and baptized.

Hearing these things again, the troubled king sent soldiers to bring him bound. When they approached him, they did not dare draw near.

He said: “What do you want, or whom do you seek?”

They replied: “The king sent us to you so that we may lead you bound before him.”

He said: “Si [read: Nisi, Unless] I will it, I cannot be led, whether bound or free.”

They said: “Therefore, if you do not wish to come, go wherever you please.”

“It shall not be so,” he said, “but I shall go with you.”

After converting them by preaching on the way and having them baptized, he at last stood before the king.

Marveling at his great size, the king asked about his lineage.

Christopher replied: “My face indicates my lineage, for I am from the region of Canaan. By my parents I am called Reprobus, but, rejecting this name at baptism, I am now called Christopher.”

The king said to him: “What a foolish name you have imposed upon yourself, derived, namely, from the crucified Christ, who can aid neither himself nor you. Yet I tell you one thing: if you sacrifice, you will obtain great riches and honors from me; but if not, you will be consumed by many torments.”

When he refused to consent, the king ordered him suspended on the rack and lacerated with claws until his ribs were laid bare.

At a suggestion made to the king concerning this, he sent to Christopher two beautiful and wanton women. When he was pressed by those prostitutes’ clapping of hands and embraces, the saint rose from prayer and said: “What do you want, and why have you been brought in?”

Unable to bear the brightness of his face, but terrified and pierced in heart, they said: “Have mercy upon us, Saint Christopher, so that we may be able to believe in the God whom you preach. For we were brought in for this purpose: just as we have deceived many by lusts, so we were to draw you to idolatry.”

God’s saint spoke gently to them and converted them to Christ by his preaching.

Hearing of their conversion, the king ordered them summoned to him and said: “Have you too withdrawn from our gods through his magical arts? But I swear by the gods that unless you sacrifice, you will perish by an evil death.”

They told him to gather everyone at the temple and have the public squares cleaned. Believing from these words that they wished to sacrifice, the king gathered all the people.

Coming to the temple and ascending to the idol of Jupiter, they said: “If you are a god, command what we should do, for the king has ordered us to sacrifice.”

When the idol said nothing, they bound all the idols, threw them to the ground, and shattered them. They said to the bystanders: “Go and summon physicians to heal your gods.”

Hearing this, the king said: “I warned you to adore the gods, not to shatter them. But I swear by their power that I shall make you die by diverse torments.”

They replied: “Fool, if they were gods, why did they allow themselves to be shattered by the frail sex?”

At the king’s command Aquilina was therefore suspended, and, after a huge stone was tied to her feet, all her limbs were torn apart. When she had died, her sister Niceta was cast into the fire with her hands and feet bound. Emerging unharmed, she was beheaded.

The king next ordered Christopher bound in iron chains and beaten with rods, then bound and burned in a fire in the middle of the city. But, remaining unharmed in the fire itself, he exhorted the people.

The king afterward had a millstone bound to his neck and had him dragged through the city, bound to a stake, and shot with arrows. One arrow, however, turned backward and struck the eye of the jeering king.

At last Christopher was beheaded. When the king anointed his eye with Christopher’s blood, it was healed.

Jacobus de Voragine adds to the foregoing an account of Christopher’s conversion. When Christopher was immense in body like a giant, he sought the greatest prince with whom he might remain.

Hearing the reputation of a certain king who was said to be most powerful, Christopher approached him, was honorably received by him, and was urged to remain at his court.

But one day, while a certain entertainer was telling a tale before the king in which he often named the devil, the king, being a Christian, suddenly made the sign of the cross upon himself.

Christopher, who was not yet a Christian, wondered why he did this and asked him. When the king explained that he feared the devil might harm him, Christopher said: “Therefore the devil is a greater lord than you, since you fear him. Farewell, then, for I wish to find the devil, with whom I may remain.”

As he passed through the desert seeking the devil, the devil appeared to him in the form of a great and terrible lord with a retinue of many soldiers.

When he asked Christopher what he wanted or where he was going, and Christopher replied that he was seeking the lord devil, the devil said: “I am the one whom you seek.”

Christopher offered to remain with him in his service. As he traveled with him, they found on a certain road a wooden sign of the cross erected there. On account of it, the devil left the direct road and led him through pathless and thorny places, afterward returning with him to the direct road.

Wondering at this, Christopher asked the reason why he had left the good road. When the devil was unwilling to give a reason and Christopher declared that he would withdraw from him unless he disclosed it, the devil replied that he feared that sign because of someone crucified upon it who had overcome him.

Christopher said: “Then he is greater than you. Therefore, I wish to seek him, Jesus Christ.”

After questioning many people about him, Christopher was directed to a holy hermit. The hermit instructed him in Christ’s faith and in the conduct Christians must observe, among which were that one ought to fast, pray, and do other such things.

When Christopher said that, because he was not accustomed to them, he could not do them, the hermit finally told him and enjoined upon him, in service of so great a king and lord, that, because he was immense in body, he should remain beside a certain river whose water was deep and in whose crossing many were drowned. He was to carry upon his shoulders those who wished to cross.

Christopher accepted this. Making a small dwelling of wood beside the river, he carried everyone across.

One night a little boy cried out, calling him to carry him across the river. Christopher went out of his dwelling but found no one. The boy did this three times. On the third occasion, however, Christopher saw the little one, who was the Lord Jesus Christ in the form of a boy.

Placing him upon his shoulders, Christopher crossed the river. The waves swelled, and the boy weighed so heavily that it was as if he bore the greatest possible weight upon himself and was almost in danger.

When he had crossed the river, he set down the little boy and said: “Truly, boy, you placed me in great danger. You weighed so much that it was as if I bore the whole world upon me.”

The boy said to him: “Do not marvel, for upon your shoulders you bore him who governs the whole world. For I am the Lord Jesus Christ, whom you serve in this work, and great is your reward.”

From then on Christopher proceeded to preach, as has been said.

Vincent does not write these things in the place cited above, either because he wished to abbreviate or because perhaps he did not regard them as authentic, although the Church celebrates Christopher’s martyrdom.

Saint Antoninus. § XLII

Vincent relates in the place cited above that Antoninus was born in the town of Appamia and was noble in lineage. From infancy he began to excel in good virtues. Instructed in sacred letters, he read the sacred precepts and strove to fulfill them.

When he burned with desire for martyrdom, he departed from the town of Appamia and, seeking Christians, found very many. While he stayed among them, he was promoted to the priestly order.

While traveling and preaching, he burned with thirst from the labor of the journey and prayed that God would assist his necessity. He confidently struck the ground with a staff, and immediately a spring flowed from it. He was refreshed from it, and that water also furnished health to the sick.

Returning to Appamia and persisting in his religious purpose, he preached and did not cease to reprove the unbelief of the gentiles.

When diabolical rage against him grew inflamed in the hearts of the sacrilegious, Antoninus, filled with the divine Spirit, predicted his impending martyrdom to the few Christians who were with him.

When the Christians visited for prayer the sacred places where the bodies of the martyrs rested, Antoninus was with them. But, withdrawing from them, he made known that he would go farther away for prayer and would by no means return.

Sensing that the gentiles lying in wait for him were approaching, he voluntarily offered himself. Seized by them and beaten along the road, he was led as far as the river flowing at the foot of Appamia. There he was beheaded. They tore apart his head and his entire body and cast them into the river so that the Christians would not find him.

In a marvelous manner, however, the blood that flowed from his body coagulated amid the clashing waters, and the waters’ force dispersed none of it.

When the faithful heard of his consummation, they came to the place and honorably buried the body they found.

The severed head, however, after being cast into the river, was immediately received by angels, placed in a small manseolo [read: mausoleo, mausoleum or shrine], and set in a little boat divinely prepared. Guided by angels in the likeness of two eagles, it came to the appointed place.

A certain Festus, a prince of that region, understood through the Spirit that it was Saint Antoninus’s head, received it devoutly, and built a church for it.

Saint Romanus. § XLIII

A certain outstanding martyr, a Roman named Romanus, as Vincent reports in Book XIV of the Speculum Historiale, suffered under Galerius. Galerius was made Caesar by Diocletian and, after Diocletian’s death [read: abdication], ruled with Constantine for a time, as will appear below.

When this tyrant had sent an edict everywhere that whoever wished to live must deny Christ, Romanus, a man of keen intellect and outstanding character, comforted the minds of those who were afraid and urged them not to yield to the storm.

Thus the Christian flock, conspired together and allied, determined either to protect the faith or willingly to die.

When it was reported to the judge that Romanus was the leader of the rebellious populace, the prince ordered him seized and, as though he alone were the instigator of them all, made to answer the charge on behalf of the defiant people. But, not resisting, he asked to be bound and voluntarily twisted his hands behind his back.

The tyrant said to him as he stood there: “Infamous monster, agitator of the city and storm of the fickle populace, you disturb mobile minds. It is just, unless I am mistaken, that you should be the first to pay the penalty for the slaughter soon to come, and that you yourself should bear what you urged others to bear.”

He replied freely: “I embrace it, prefect, and do not withdraw, so that I alone, as a worthy sacrifice for the faithful people, may undergo whatever your cruelty commands.”

The soldiers then cut both sides of the man with a blade. They plowed long wounds along his limbs, cutting oblique lines across straight ones and straight across oblique, until his breast grew white with the bones laid bare.

Remaining calm amid these things, Romanus said: “Prefect, all this laceration does not grieve me. What grieves me is that error has taken possession of your breast and that you drag these lost peoples with you.”

The martyr had scarcely finished his words when the raging Asclepiades, who had ordered the martyr tortured, interrupted: “Let the executioner turn his blow upon the speaker’s mouth and transfer his hand, sharp furrows, and cords to the jaws. Let the very seat of his wordiness be ruptured, so that through perforated bellows he may lose the air that gushes forth.”

The impious executioner fulfilled the commands. With scraping claws he cut both cheeks and cut the face with votis [read: notis, marks or wounds]. The skin was torn piecemeal from the shaggy beard, and he split the entire face as far as the chin.

Amid the flowing blood the martyr said: “I owe you great thanks, prefect, because, now that you have opened many mouths, I speak Christ through them and Christ’s glory. Behold, as many mouths praise him as there are wounds.

“But since I am now no longer permitted to contend with you, let us consult a deeper reason close at hand. Let the simple judgment of the natural senses be questioned, inexperienced and without the art of deceit. Bring a child of about seven years or younger, so that we may ask what newborn infancy follows and what fresh vigor understands.”

Embracing this proposal, the prefect ordered one recently weaned child from the crowd of infants to be present.

Romanus said to him: “What seems to you, little son, to be true and fitting: to worship one Christ and the Father in Christ, or to adore gods of a thousand forms?”

The child smiled and answered without delay: “Whatever people may say, there must be one God, and truly only one. Since this one is Christ Jesus, he is the true God, for even children do not believe in many kinds of gods.”

The tyrant was stunned and wavered in shame. It did not become him to inflict the force of the law upon an innocent age, yet his fury did not permit him to spare one who said such things.

He said: “Who is the author of this declaration for you?”

The child replied: “My mother and my mother’s God. As a little child I drank milk from the twin fountains of her breasts; I also drank belief in Christ. Taught by the manifest Spirit, she imbued me with what would nourish me even among the cradle itself.”

Asclepiades then cried: “Therefore let that very mother be present and witness the sad outcome of her teaching.”

He immediately ordered the child stripped and beaten with rods, and his tender back cut by harsh blows. Finally, he commanded both to perish: the child to be beheaded by the sword and his teacher Romanus to be consumed by fire.

The executioner demanded the child; his mother surrendered him. She did not linger with tears, but merely impressed one kiss upon him.

She said: “Farewell, sweetest son, and when you have entered Christ’s blessed kingdoms, remember your mother, now a client of her own son.”

While the executioner struck the little neck with his sword, the woman, taught to sing, sang a hymn from the song of David: “Precious is the death of a saint in God’s sight.”

When Romanus was then thrust upon the pyre with his arms twisted behind him, he said: “I know that I shall not now be burned, nor has this kind of passion been assigned to me, but it remains for a great miracle to occur.”

His words were followed by the immense crash of a falling cloud, and a torrent pouring down in waves overwhelmed the fires.

[Running heads: Chapter One, Folio 265; Eighth Title.]

Hearing this, the judge angrily attributed the deed to the mockery of magical art. He then ordered the martyr dragged through the forum and thrust into the nocturnal darkness of prison.

There a wicked executioner crushed his neck with a rope. Thus, his passion completed and his soul released from the body’s bonds, he sought heaven.

Saint Marinus the Boy. § XLIV

Vincent tells a marvelous passion of Saint Marinus the boy in Book XIV of the Speculum Historiale. He was the son of a certain senator of the city of Rome. Inflamed with the desire to undertake martyrdom, he was seized by Martianus.

Although this Martianus is called an emperor in a history of this kind, according to Vincent he seems rather to have been a governor.

When questioned about his lineage or condition, Marinus freely professed himself a Christian, contemned the sacrifice he was urged to make, and did not fear threats. At the tyrant’s command he was stretched out and cut on the back and belly with the hardest straps. Afterward he was thrust into prison.

On the following day he was suspended on the rack, and his body was lacerated with claws.

Then a wooden saw was constructed with a stone placed upon it from above so that, when set upon him, it would divide his limbs. It harmed him in no place.

After this the tyrant ordered him placed upon a gridiron with fire set beneath it, but immediately a stream came forth from the earth and extinguished the fire.

The tyrant added a frying vessel placed over a fierce fire and had him put in it. Placed in it, Marinus glorified God and said to the tyrant: “You have prepared meat for eating. Now take some portion of yours and eat until the others are prepared.”

As he said these things, dew descended from heaven and extinguished the fire.

He was next sent headfirst into a cauldron full of pitch kindled by fire, so that he would die with his head immersed in it. He voluntarily threw himself into the cauldron, but the cauldron was split into two parts and the pitch poured out. The saint, standing in the middle, glorified God.

Not content, Martianus ordered an arena prepared and had Marinus placed there, and a lion and a leopard sent against him to devour him.

Truly incited, they came out of the cage to the holy boy. The lion clasped his shoulders caressingly, while the leopard lay at his feet.

The tyrant said: “What is this illusion that I see?”

He ordered the beasts returned to their cage. No matter how much they were harassed to do this, they could not be moved from the saint’s feet. But when the saint commanded them, they returned to their place.

The tyrant again had a lioness and a she-bear sent against him. Running toward him, they tore his garments, fell at his feet, and died.

Afterward he had a leopard sent in with a trigide [read: tigride, tigress]. Climbing to his neck, they embraced him; one of them kissed him, while the other wiped the sweat from his face.

The tyrant also ordered a bull brought in and cauterized on the back so that it would rage more violently, and the boy himself bound to its horns. With its horns burning, the bull did not feel the fire or heed the cautery, but licked God’s saint with its tongue.

After these things Martianus had him placed in a burning pile of wood. The fire touched nothing of him.

Removing him from it, they sent him into a fiery chimney or furnace, but two angels descended to him. He blessed God with them and experienced no pain.

He was then brought to the temple of the idols. When he had prayed, all the gods fell and were reduced to dust.

Seeing this, the Roman people cried: “Truly, great is the Christians’ God.”

Therefore, confounded in every way, Martianus ordered him beheaded.

The exultant saint said: “Come, Father of glory, receive the head of your boy.”

His father and mother also exhorted him to finish his course in a blessed contest, knowing that he would receive the crown of victory.

Having prayed, he signed himself with the cross, gave peace to the brothers, bent his knees, and rendered his spirit to God.

A scoffer, however, struck him when he was already dead and cut off his head.

Martianus ordered his body cast among the bodies of robbers and guarded lest the Christians take it. But a flood of waters arose, together with a multiplication of thunder and lightning. Terrified, the attendants fled, and the faithful took the body and delivered it to burial.

Struck by God with the terrible judgment that worms boiled forth from his mouth, Martianus was compelled to confess that the true God was the Christians’ God, and he expired miserably.

Lucian. § XLV

Lucian, a priest of Antioch, suffered under Emperor Maximinus, who succeeded Diocletian and for some time ruled together with Constantine, as will be said below.

As Vincent relates in the book cited above, Lucian was outstanding in conduct, continence, and learning.

When he had been brought before the judge’s tribunal, the governor said to him: “Why do you, a reasonable and prudent man, follow a sect for which you can give no reason? Or, if there is some reason, let us hear it.”

Then, when permission to speak had been given him, he is said to have delivered a discourse concerning our faith. When it was finished, he added:

“The very place at Jerusalem supports these things, as does the rock of Golgotha, rent beneath the honore [read: onere, weight] of the gibbet. That cave too, after the gates of hell had been struck down, returned the body reanimated so that it might be borne thence more purely to heaven.

“But if these things, which possess substance upon earth, still seem to you less worthy, receive also an astimulatorem [read: astipulatorem, faithful supporter] from heaven. I bring forward the sun itself as a witness to these things for you. When it saw this being done by the impious on earth, it hid its light in heaven.

“Search in your annals. You will find that, in the time of Pilate, while Christ was suffering and the sun had fled, darkness interrupted the day.

“If you give no credence to the earth, to heaven, or to the blood of those from whom you seek the truth through torments, how will you believe my words and arguments?”

When by these words he had almost begun to persuade his hearers, he was ordered seized, cast into prison, and killed in an uprising of the people.

Jerome also speaks thus of him in his book On Illustrious Men: “Lucian, a most eloquent man and priest of the church of Antioch, labored so greatly in the study of the Scriptures that even now certain copies of the Scriptures are called Lucianic. Treatises of his concerning the faith and brief letters to several people circulate. He suffered at Nicomedia for his confession of Christ under the persecution of Maximinus.”

Eusebius also relates in his Ecclesiastical History that there was a venerable woman, beautiful alike in beauty and modesty, of noble lineage and wealthy. She had two daughters, beautiful virgins instructed according to the rule of their mother’s modesty, whom their mother had educated in the fear of the Lord.

When the mother and daughters were sought with the greatest diligence, they arranged their absence in order to turn aside the violence of the storm. Finally found, the mother and daughters were seized by soldiers and pressed to come to Antioch.

As they traveled, the mother said to her daughters: “My sweetest daughters, you know how I educated you in God’s discipline. You know that from your earliest years God has been our father, God our nourisher, and God our teacher. You have loved the good of chastity together with me so much that not even your eye has ever been stained by a more wanton sight.

“Therefore, bodies that even the public air itself scarcely knew are to be prostituted in public brothels. I beg you, daughters, the faith in God within us is not so small that we fear death, nor is chastity so despised that we desire to live with dishonor.

“Rather, if what you hold in all things is pleasing, follow your mother’s example in this as well. Let us anticipate and forestall the assault of the shameless.”

When she saw her daughters inflamed toward this purpose, they came to a certain river situated on their journey. Pretending that they had gone down to the water because of a bodily necessity, while their guards suspected nothing concerning it, they cast themselves into the current of the swift river.

Other virgins, for a similar reason, cast themselves into the waves of the sea at Antioch.

Eusebius relates these things. Under the common law this is in no way lawful, but they did this by the impulse of the Holy Spirit, as Augustine appears to mean in Book I of The City of God.

Peter. § XLVI

Peter, bishop of the city of Alexandria, distinguished in all things and perfect in all, a true priest and sacrifice of God, was suddenly seized and, as though by command of Maximinus, beheaded. Several other bishops from Egypt were slain together with him, as Vincent relates in Book XIV, chapter XV.

During the time of his episcopate, Peter never wished to sit in his chair, but sat upon a stool before his chair. Because of this the clergy and people frequently complained against him, but he by no means acquiesced.

For whenever he ascended, a fiery splendor coming forth from the seat itself appeared to him. At its sight the holy man was so enkindled that at times he did not know that he was in the body.

When, during a certain solemnity, the clergy and bishops complained of his so humble seat, he was constrained and, unable to conceal the matter, said: “Why do you afflict my heart? Do you not see the fiery power that flashes from the throne itself, and do you not discern the Spirit gleaming?”

When all heard so great a thing and fell silent with bowed heads, he added: “Believe me, little sons: if you saw what I see, you would now know what priestly power is and what grace dwells within it. Terrified before the presence of its majesty, I do not dare to sit in that chair.”

This bishop, therefore, outstanding among the foremost, spent twelve years in the episcopate of that city. He passed three of them before the persecution and the remaining nine amid diverse kinds of trials.

As he always placed himself in every contest of persecutions, bound himself with the tighter bonds of continence, and nobly persisted in the word of God for the Church’s profit and instruction, Maximinus directed a certain tribune to seize him.

Entering Alexandria, the tribune found Peter celebrating the commemoration of the holy apostles with a multitude of people. He seized him, bound him in chains, and placed him in the prison’s custody.

After several days Maximinus admonished the tribune to punish him as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, while Peter was kept in prison and all the people of Alexandria watched the prison doors out of love for their shepherd, the unhappy Arius—excommunicated and deposed by blessed Peter because of his erroneous doctrine—learned of Maximinus’s sentence against Saint Peter.

Arius hastened to the church, begging that the clergy and people intercede for him with the bishop, thinking that after Peter’s departure he himself would be elevated as bishop.

Those who had been asked came and began to entreat the blessed bishop on Arius’s behalf.

With a great sigh, the holy bishop replied that Arius was already dead to God and cast from God’s face because he had gravely blasphemed against the essence of the deity, teaching that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were not of one nature and essence.

Taking two priests, namely Achillas and Alexander, apart from the crowd, he said to them in secret: “Although I am a sinner, I nevertheless know by a heavenly calling that I have been summoned to this contest of martyrdom.

“It is therefore your pious duty to confess God’s mystery, which has been revealed to me: that after my martyrdom you will succeed to my see and episcopate—you first, Achillas, and afterward Alexander.

“At this hour of the night, so that I may disclose to you the whole matter concerning Arius, after I had completed the sacrifice of prayer to God according to solemn custom, behold, suddenly my Lord Christ appeared to me in the appearance of a boy.

“His countenance was so illuminated by the exceeding splendor of his majesty that I could not look upon him. He was clothed in an exceedingly white linen tunic, split from top to bottom. With both hands he drew it together around his breast, in this way somehow covering his nakedness.

“When I saw him, I was seized by excessive fear. At last, comforted, I said to him: ‘Lord, what is this that I see—your tunic split from top to bottom?’

“He answered me: ‘You vides tractus [read: inde tractas, discuss it] every day, and you do not know how it was torn. Arius did this. He separated from me the people of my inheritance, purchased by my blood.

“‘I command and warn you now not to receive him into communion and not to grant him pardon when those whom he will send come to you with their requests.

“‘You shall make these things I have revealed to you known to the two priests, so that after you they may cast him out by anathematizing him and the people may not be deceived by his error.’”

Peter therefore delivered an exhortation that they should remain in the unity of the catholic faith. Commending them to the Lord in whom they believed, he dismissed them in peace.

Because the people were held around the prison by their exceeding love for him and he could not suitably be brought out of the prison, at midnight the tribune, together with the soldiers, broke through the prison wall. Through an opening in its middle, he had Peter led to the place where he was to be beheaded.

Saint Peter therefore prayed at the tomb of blessed Mark and of his holy successors Anianus, Demetrius, and Theonas. Bending his knees and giving thanks to God for associating him with his martyrs, he extended his neck to the swordsman. Thus struck, he obtained the palm of martyrdom.

Under Licinius. § XLVII

Under Licinius, who ruled together with Constantine, as will be said below, forty soldiers suffered on the seventh day before the Ides of March at Sebaste in Hermenia [read: Armeniae, Lesser Armenia], under Governor Agricolaus. Their foremost men were Quirion and Candidus.

Candidus said to Agricolaus: “The name imposed upon you is fitting, for you are a rustic flatterer.”

Saint Quirion said to his companions: “Often we few have put many to flight. Now, however, there are three who attack us: Satan, Duke Lysias, and Governor Agricolaus. These three are one, namely in the malice of seduction. Far be it that this one should conquer forty.”

They were ordered pelted with stones, but the attendants, raising the stones, struck one another.

Burning with anger, Duke Lysias took up a stone to strike one of the saints. He brought the stone against the governor’s face and smashed his face.

As the saints stood before the governor’s face, the devil appeared to them holding a sword in his right hand and a dragon in his left. He said in the governor’s ear: “You are mine. Strive!”

[Running heads: Chapter One, Folio 266; Eighth Title.]

At Sebaste there was a lake containing much water, which was then exceedingly cold in the winter season. The forty soldiers were placed naked in its midst.

Toward evening a bath was set beside the lake so that, if anyone wished to come to his senses, he might flee to the bath. Soldiers were stationed there as guards, together with the keeper of the keys.

One of the forty, becoming fainthearted, fled to the bath. As soon as he touched the warmth, he immediately died.

Seeing this, the others said as if with one voice: “Do not be angry in the rivers, O Lord.”

The keeper of the keys, however, kept watch and listened while the other guards slept. He saw thirty-nine crowns descending from heaven.

Rousing the guards, he threw his garments in their faces, leapt naked into the lake, and cried: “I too am a Christian.”

Satan, overcome and transforming himself into a man with bound hands upon his knees in everyone’s sight, said: “Woe to me! I have been conquered by these men and made ridiculous before all, because I did not have ministers of one mind.”

The mother of one of them remained with them. Her son, whose name was Melichon, was younger than the others. Fearing for her son, she continually strengthened him.

It was therefore ordered that the legs of all of them be broken. All except the younger one rendered their spirits at the same time.

Their bodies were ordered placed upon two-wheeled carts to be burned. The younger man, however, was left upon the riverbank. His mother took him upon her shoulders and carried him after the others.

While he was being carried, he gave up his spirit. His mother cast his body among the saints.

They were all burned, and their ashes were cast into the river. But they remained and gathered in a steep and rugged place, and the river diminished none of them.

After three days the saints themselves revealed the ashes to the city’s bishop. Taking the clergy and people, the bishop proceeded there. They saw the relics shining in the water like lamps. Water flowed over them without carrying any of them away, and if anything had been left anywhere, it was revealed by its splendor.

All these martyrs were Cappadocians and soldiers, as is written in their passion.

Although they suffered on the fifth day before the Ides of March, their passion is nevertheless announced in the martyrology on the seventh day before the Ides of March.

Concerning these martyrs, who were tormented by diverse tortures, and also concerning the passions of others related above, one must diligently note what Pope Gelasius says in Distinction XV, Sancta Romana:

“The deeds of the holy martyrs, which shine with marvelous triumphs of confessions amid the manifold torments of tortures—what Catholic doubts that they endured still greater things in their contests and tolerated them not by their own strength but by God’s grace and assistance?

“Yet, according to ancient authority and custom, they are not read in the holy Roman Church, by reason of a singular caution. For the names of those who wrote them are entirely unknown, and it is thought that either unbelievers or dictis [read: idiotis, uneducated persons] wrote things superfluous or less fitting than the order of the matter was, as in the acts of Quiricus, Julitta, George, and others of this kind.

“Lest even a slight occasion for mockery arise, they are not read in the holy Roman Church. Nevertheless, together with the aforementioned Church, we venerate with every devotion all the martyrs and their most glorious contests, which are better known to God than to human beings.” Thus far Gelasius.