Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs

In the times of Diocletian and Maximian, the devil declared war on the Christians in this way: he demanded the sacred Testaments of the Lord and the divine Scriptures for burning, he overthrew the Lord's basilicas, and he forbade the sacred rites and the most holy assemblies to be celebrated to the Lord. But the army of the Lord God did not endure so monstrous a command; it shuddered at the sacrilegious order, and at once took up the arms of faith and went down into battle, to fight not so much against men as against the devil. And although some fell from the hinge of the faith by handing over the Lord's Scriptures to the Gentiles, and the divine Testaments to be burned in profane fires, yet very many, by keeping them and gladly shedding their blood for them, made a brave end. And these, filled with God, having conquered and laid low the devil, bearing the victorious palm in their passion, all of them as martyrs sealed with their own blood the sentence against the traitors and their associates, by which they had rejected them from the communion of the church. For it had not been right that martyrs and traitors should be in the church of God together.

So from every side immense troops of confessors flew to the field of battle, and wherever each found the enemy, there he pitched the Lord's camp. For in the city of Abitina, in the house of Octavius Felix, when the trumpet of war was sounding, the glorious martyrs had raised the Lord's standards; and there, while they were celebrating the Lord's service according to custom, they were arrested by the magistrates of the colony and by the stationed soldier himself: Saturninus the presbyter with his four children, that is, Saturninus the younger and Felix, readers, Mary, a consecrated virgin, and Hilarion, a small child; and also Dativus, who was also a senator, Felix, another Felix, Emeritus, Ampelius, Rogatianus, Quintus, Maximianus, Thelica, Rogatianus, Rogatus, Januarius, Cassianus, Victorianus, Vincentius, Caecilianus, Restituta, Prima, Eva, Rogatianus, Givalius, Rogatus, Pomponia, Secunda, Januaria, Saturnina, Martinus, Dantus, Felix, Margarita, Major, Honorata, Regiola, Victorinus, Pelusius, Faustus, Dacianus, Matrona, Caecilia, Victoria, Herectina, Secunda, and another Matrona, Januaria. When they had been arrested, they were brought eagerly to the forum.

To this, the first field of battle, Dativus went first, whom holy parents had begotten as a senator robed in white for the heavenly senate. Saturninus the presbyter went also, surrounded by a numerous offspring of children: part of his progeny he destined as his companions in martyrdom, part he left to the church as a pledge of his name. These the Lord's army followed, in which shone the splendor of heavenly arms: the shield of faith, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, and the two-edged sword, the word of God. Upheld by their protection, they promised the brothers the hope of victory. And now they reached the forum of the aforesaid city. There they first engaged and won the palm of confession by the statement of the magistrates. For in that very forum heaven had already fought for the Lord's Scriptures, when Fundanus, once bishop of that city, handed over the Lord's Scriptures to be burned; when the sacrilegious magistrate put them to the fire, suddenly rain poured down from a clear sky, the fire set to the holy Scriptures was put out, hail was added, and the whole region was laid waste by the raging elements for the sake of the Lord's Scriptures.

From this city, then, the martyrs of Christ received their first longed-for chains; and being sent to Carthage, eager and joyful, along the whole way they sang hymns and songs to the Lord. When they came to the staff of Anulinus, then proconsul, and stood in the battle line firmly and bravely, they beat back with the Lord's steadfastness the onslaught of the raging devil. But since the devil's fury could not prevail against all the soldiers of Christ together, it demanded them one by one for combat. The battles of these combats I shall set out not so much in my own words as in the martyrs' sayings: so that the boldness of the raging enemy may be known in the tortures and in the sacrilegious invective itself, and the power of Christ, the all-powerful Lord, may be praised in the endurance of the martyrs and in the confession itself.

So when they were presented to the proconsul by the staff, and it was reported that they were Christians sent by the magistrates of Abitina, who against the prohibition of the emperors and Caesars had celebrated the assembly and the Lord's service, the proconsul first asked Dativus what his condition was and whether he had held an assembly. When he professed that he was a Christian and had been in the assembly, he was asked by the proconsul who was the leader of that most holy gathering. At once the staff were ordered to hoist him on the rack and, stretched out, to cut him with the hooks. But while the torturers were carrying out the cruel orders with savage speed, and stood ready, raging, at the word, and with the martyr's sides bared for wounds were poised with the hooks raised, suddenly Thelica, a most brave martyr, threw himself through the middle in the way of the tortures, and cried out, “We are Christians. We,” he said, “held the assembly.” At once the proconsul's fury blazed up, and groaning, gravely wounded by the spiritual sword, he beat the martyr of Christ with very heavy blows, stretched him suspended on the rack, and tore him with screeching hooks. But the most glorious martyr Thelica, from the very midst of the torturers' fury, poured out to the Lord prayers like these with thanksgiving: “Thanks be to God. In your name, Christ, Son of God, free your servants.”

As he was praying thus, the proconsul said, “Who is the leader of your congregation with you?” While the torturer raged more cruelly, he answered in a clear voice, “Saturninus the presbyter, and all of us.” O martyr, giving the first place to all! For he did not set the presbyter above the brothers, but joined the brothers to the presbyter in the fellowship of confession. So when the proconsul asked for Saturninus, he pointed him out: not that he betrayed him, whom he saw fighting with him against the devil, but to make plain to the proconsul that they had celebrated the assembly fully, since the presbyter too had been with them. So blood flowed together with the voice of the man entreating the Lord; and, mindful of the precepts of the gospel, the martyr asked pardon for his enemies amid the very tearing of his body. For in the midst of the most grievous torments of his wounds he reproached the torturers and the proconsul alike with these words: “You act unjustly, unhappy men; you act against God. God most high, do not consent to these sins of theirs. You sin, unhappy men; you act against God. Keep the commandments of God most high. You act unjustly, unhappy men; you are tearing the innocent. We are not murderers; we have committed no fraud. God, have mercy; I give you thanks. Lord, for your name's sake give endurance. Free your servants from the captivity of this world. I give you thanks, and I cannot thank you enough.” And when his sides were furrowed more strongly by the blows of the hooks, and a stream of blood ran out in violent gushes, he heard the proconsul say to him, “You will begin to feel what you people ought to suffer.” And he added, “To glory. I give thanks to the God of kingdoms. The eternal kingdom appears, the incorruptible kingdom. Lord Jesus Christ, we are Christians, we serve you; you are our hope, you are the hope of Christians. God most holy, God most high, God almighty. We give you praise for your name, Lord God almighty.” As he prayed thus, the devil said to him through the judge, “You ought to have kept the order of the emperors and Caesars.” With his body now exhausted, the victor cried out in his spirit with a strong and steadfast word, “I care for nothing but the law of God, which I have learned. This I keep, for this I shall die, in this I am made perfect; besides it there is no other.” At such sayings of the most glorious martyr, Anulinus himself was tormented more than he in his torments. At last, his fury glutted with cruelty, he said, “Stop,” and shutting the martyr up in prison, he destined him for the passion he deserved.

After him Dativus was raised up by the Lord in the contest; hanging on the rack, stretched out, he had watched from close at hand Thelica's most brave battle. And when he too, in a voice often repeated, proclaimed bravely that he was a Christian and had held the assembly, there came forward Fortunatianus, brother of the most holy martyr Victoria, a man indeed of the toga, but at that time a stranger to the most holy worship of the Christian religion. He kept accusing the martyr hanging on the rack with profane words: “This is the man, my lord, who, in our father's absence, while we were studying here, led astray our sister Victoria, and took her away with him from here, from the most splendid city of Carthage, together with Secunda and Restituta, as far as the colony of Abitina; and he never entered our house except when he was enticing the girls' minds by certain persuasions.” But Victoria, the most illustrious martyr of the Lord, did not endure that her colleague and fellow martyr, the senator, should be falsely attacked. At once, breaking out with Christian freedom, she said, “I set out by no one's persuasion, and I did not come to Abitina with him. I can prove this by citizens. I did everything of my own accord and will. For I was in the assembly, and I celebrated the Lord's service with the brothers, because I am a Christian.” Then the shameless advocate heaped up abuse against the martyr. And the glorious martyr, from the rack, refuted it all with a true answer. Meanwhile Anulinus, burning with anger, ordered the hooks to be pressed into the martyr. At once the torturers found his sides, bared and ready for the blows, with bloody wounds. Their savage hands flew, quicker than the swift orders, and, the skin torn and the inner parts pulled apart, with added cruelty they laid open the secrets of his breast to the abominable gaze of the profane. Meanwhile the martyr's mind stood unmoved; and though his limbs were broken, his inner parts torn away, his sides rent apart, the martyr's spirit still remained whole and unshaken. Then Dativus, who was also a senator, mindful of his dignity, poured out prayers to the Lord in these words under the raging torturer: “O Christ, Lord, let me not be put to shame.” With these words the most blessed martyr obtained what he had asked of the Lord as easily as he had briefly asked it.

Then at once, the proconsul's mind being shaken, his tongue blurted out, “Stop.” The torturers ceased. For it was not right that the martyr of Christ should be tortured in the case of his fellow martyr Victoria. For when Pompeianus too, the savage accuser in an unworthy suspicion, came against him and joined a slanderous action, he was scorned by the martyr and beaten back. What are you doing in this place, devil? What are you still attempting against the martyrs of Christ? By the senator and martyr of the Lord both the power and the fury of the court have been overcome. But since the most illustrious martyr had to be tortured also for Christ, when he was asked whether he had gone to the assembly, he professed firmly and said that he had come in while the assembly was being held, and had celebrated the Lord's service with the brothers with devotion fitting their religion, and that the leader of that most holy gathering was not one person; thereby he roused the proconsul against himself again more sharply. As his cruelty broke out afresh, the martyr's dignity, now doubled, was ploughed again by the furrowing hooks. But the martyr, amid the most savage torments of his wounds, repeated his former prayer: “I ask you, Christ,” he said, “let me not be put to shame. What have I done? Saturninus is our presbyter.”

While the hard and savage torturers, cruelty showing the way, were scraping his sides with their hooked claws, Saturninus the presbyter was called to the battle. Contemplating the heavenly kingdom, he considered that his fellow martyrs were bearing very small and light things, and so he too began to fight. For when the proconsul said, “You have acted against the order of the emperors and Caesars in gathering all these together,” Saturninus the presbyter answered, the Spirit of the Lord prompting him, “We celebrated the Lord's service without care.” The proconsul said, “Why?” He answered, “Because the Lord's service cannot be left off.” As soon as he said this, he was at once ordered to be placed opposite Dativus. Meanwhile Dativus watched the tearing of his own body rather than grieving over it; and because his mind and spirit hung upon the Lord, he counted the pain of his body as nothing, but only prayed to the Lord, saying, “Help me, I beg, Christ; have pity. Save my soul, guard my spirit, that I may not be put to shame. I ask you, Christ, give endurance.” And when the proconsul said to him, “From this most splendid city you ought rather to have called others to a right mind, and not to have acted against the command of the emperors and Caesars,” he cried out more strongly and more steadfastly, “I am a Christian.” Overcome by this word, the devil said, “Stop.” And thrusting him into prison together, he kept the martyr for the passion he deserved.

But Saturninus the presbyter, bathed in the fresh blood of the martyrs, while he hung on the rack, was urged to persist in the faith of those in whose blood he stood. When he was asked whether he himself was the leader and had gathered them all together, he said, “Yes, I was present in the assembly.” Emeritus the reader leapt into the contest as the presbyter was engaged: “I am the leader,” he said, “in whose house the assemblies were held.” But the proconsul, who had already been conquered so many times, shuddered at the onset of Emeritus; and yet, turning to the presbyter, he said, “Why were you acting against the command, Saturninus?” Saturninus said to him, “The Lord's service cannot be left off. The law so commands.” Then the proconsul said, “Still, you ought not to have despised what was forbidden, but rather observed it, and not acted against the command of the emperors.” And with the words long rehearsed against the martyrs, he urged the torturer to rage, and he was obeyed with no slow compliance. For the torturers rushed upon the presbyter's aged body and, their fury running riot, the joining of the sinews broken, tore it apart, to tortures worthy of lamentation, and torments of a new kind devised against the priest of God. You could see the torturers raging with ravenous hunger as if feeding on wounds, and, the inner parts laid open, to the horror of the onlookers, the bared bones showing pale amid the red of the blood. And lest, amid the delays of the torturers, the soul should be driven out and leave the body while the punishment was still in suspense, the presbyter prayed to the Lord in these words: “I ask you, Christ, hear me. I give you thanks, God; order me to be beheaded. I ask you, Christ, have mercy: Son of God, help me.” The proconsul said to him, “Why were you acting against the command?” And the presbyter said, “The law so commands, the law so teaches.” O divine answer of the presbyter and teacher, wonderful enough and worthy to be proclaimed! The presbyter proclaims the most holy law even under torture, for which he was gladly enduring punishments. At last, frightened by the word “law,” Anulinus said, “Stop.” And putting him in the custody of the prison, he destined him for the punishment he longed for.

But when Emeritus was brought forward, the proconsul said, “Were assemblies held in your house against the commands of the emperors?” Emeritus, flooded with the Holy Spirit, said to him, “In my house we held the Lord's service.” And he said, “Why did you let them come in?” He answered, “Because they are my brothers, and I could not forbid them.” “But you ought to have forbidden them,” he said. And he said, “I could not, because we cannot be without the Lord's service.” At once he too was ordered to be stretched on the rack and, stretched out, to be tormented. And when he was suffering strong blows from a fresh torturer, he said, “I ask you, Christ, help me. You are acting against the command of God, unhappy men.” And the proconsul, interrupting, said, “You ought not to have received them.” He answered, “I could not do otherwise than receive my brothers.” But the sacrilegious proconsul said, “But the order of the emperors and Caesars came first.” Against this the most devout martyr said, “God is greater, not the emperors. I ask you, Christ; I give you praise; Christ, Lord, give endurance.” As he was praying thus, the proconsul threw in this: “So you have some scriptures in your house?” And he answered, “I have, but in my heart.” And the proconsul said, “Do you have them in your house, or not?” Emeritus the martyr said, “I have them in my heart. I ask you, Christ, praise to you; free me, Christ; I suffer in your name. I suffer briefly, I suffer gladly, Christ, Lord; let me not be put to shame.” O martyr mindful of the apostle, who had the law of the Lord written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart! O martyr, fit and most diligent guardian of the sacred law, who, shuddering at the crime of the traitors, laid up the Lord's Scriptures within the secret places of his breast, so as not to lose them! When he learned this, the proconsul said, “Stop”; and recording his profession together with the confessions of the others, he said, “You will all pay the penalties you deserve for your merits, according to your confession.”

But now the beastly fury, its bloody mouth glutted with the tortures of the martyrs, was flagging. And when Felix, a happy man in name and in passion, came forward into the battle, and the whole line of the Lord stood firm, unbroken and unconquered, the tyrant, cast down in mind, low in voice, undone in soul and body, said, “I hope that you will choose rather this part, by which you may live, so that you keep the orders.” Against this the confessors of the Lord, unconquered martyrs of Christ, said as if with one mouth, “We are Christians. We can only keep the holy law of the Lord, even to the shedding of our blood.” Struck by this word, the enemy said to Felix, “I do not ask whether you are a Christian, but whether you held an assembly or have any Scriptures.” O foolish and laughable question of the judge! “Whether you are a Christian,” he says, “keep quiet.” And he added, “Whether you were in the assembly, answer.” As if a Christian could be without the Lord's service, or the Lord's service be celebrated without a Christian! Do you not know, Satan, that the Christian is established in the Lord's service and the Lord's service in the Christian, so that neither can be without the other? When you hear the name, learn the gathering of the Lord; and when you hear of the assembly, recognize the name. In the end you are found out by the martyr and laughed at. With such an answer you are put to confusion: “We celebrated the assembly,” he said, “most gloriously; we have always met at the Lord's service to read the Lord's Scriptures.” Gravely confounded by this confession, Anulinus had him beaten with clubs, and the martyr, lifeless, hastening to the starry tribunals, his passion completed, he joined to the heavenly council. But Felix was followed by another Felix, alike in name and confession and in the passion itself. For, engaging with like courage, the other Felix too, battered by the blows of the clubs, laying down his life in the torments of prison, was joined to the martyrdom of the former Felix.

After these Ampelius took up the contest, guardian of the law and most faithful keeper of the divine Scriptures. When the proconsul asked him whether he had been in the assembly, he answered, cheerful and untroubled, in an eager voice, “I held the assembly with the brothers, I celebrated the Lord's service, and I have the Lord's Scriptures with me, but written in my heart. Christ, I give you praise. Hear me, Christ.” When he had said this, he was beaten on the neck and sent off, joyful, with the brothers to prison, as if already to the Lord's tabernacle. He was followed by Rogatianus, who, confessing the name of the Lord, was joined unharmed to the brothers already mentioned. Quintus, brought forward, confessed the name of the Lord excellently and splendidly, was beaten with clubs and thrust into prison, kept for a fitting martyrdom. He was followed by Maximianus, equal in confession, alike in the struggle, matching in the triumphs of victory. After him Felix the younger proclaimed that the Lord's service was the hope and salvation of Christians; and when he too was likewise beaten with clubs, he said, “I celebrated the Lord's service with a devout mind; I held the assembly with the brothers, because I am a Christian.” By this confession he too earned to be joined to the brothers already mentioned.

Then Saturninus the younger, the holy offspring of the martyr Saturninus the presbyter, came eagerly to the contest he had longed for, hastening to match his father's most glorious virtues. When the proconsul, in a fury, at the devil's prompting, said to him, “And were you present too, Saturninus?” Saturninus answered, “I am a Christian.” “I do not ask you that,” he said, “but whether you celebrated the Lord's service.” Saturninus answered him, “I celebrated the Lord's service, because Christ is Savior.” At hearing the name of Savior, Anulinus blazed up, and set up his father's rack again for the son. When Saturninus had been stretched out, he said, “What do you profess, Saturninus? Do you see where you have been placed? Do you have any Scriptures?” He answered, “I am a Christian.” And the proconsul said, “I ask whether you assembled, and whether you have Scriptures.” He answered, “I am a Christian. There is no other name after Christ which we ought to keep holy.” Inflamed by this confession, the devil said, “Since you persist in your obstinacy, you must be subjected to tortures too. Say whether you have any Scriptures.” And he said to the staff, “Torment him.” The torturers, wearied by the father's wounds, went at the young man's sides, and mingled the father's blood, still moist on the hooks, with the kindred blood of the son. You could see through the furrows of the gaping wounds the father's blood flowing first from the son's sides, and the son's blood, mixed with his father's, running from the dripping hooks. But the young man, revived by the mingling of the blood of his own begetting, felt a remedy rather than torments; and, his strength renewed in the tortures, he cried out in the strongest voice, “I have the Lord's Scriptures, but in my heart. I ask you, Christ, give endurance; my hope is in you.” Anulinus said, “Why were you acting against the command?” He answered, “Because I am a Christian.” Hearing this, he said, “Stop.” And at once, the torture ceasing, he was sent off to join his father.

Meanwhile, as the hours slipped by, the day was sinking into night, and with the tortures … together with the sun, the black fury of the torturers failed, and grew faint together with the cruelty of their judge. But the Lord's legions, in which Christ, the everlasting light, shone with the flashing splendor of heavenly arms, leapt into the contests more strongly and more steadfastly. But the adversary of the Lord, conquered in so many most glorious battles of martyrs, overcome in so many and such combats, deserted by the day, seized by the night, routed as the torturers' fury now failed, could no longer engage with them one by one; so he sounded the minds of the whole army of the Lord, and attacked the devoted minds of the confessors with this question: “You have seen,” he said, “what those who persevered have endured, and what, persisting in their confession, they still have to endure. So whoever of you wishes to come to pardon, so that he may be saved, let him declare it.” To this the confessors of the Lord, glorious martyrs of Christ, joyful and triumphant together, burning not from the proconsul's words but from the victory of the passion by the Holy Spirit, said more strongly and more clearly, as if with one mouth, “We are Christians.” By this word the devil was laid low, and Anulinus was shaken; and, confounded, thrusting them all into prison, he destined those holy ones for martyrdom.

And lest the most devout sex of women, and the flowering choir of sacred virgins, should be deprived of the glory of so great a contest, all the women, with the help of Christ the Lord, fought in Victoria and were crowned. For Victoria, holiest of women, flower of virgins, ornament and dignity of confessors, of honorable birth, most holy in religion, temperate in character, in whom the good of nature shone with spotless chastity, and in whom the more beautiful faith of the mind and the integrity of holiness matched the beauty of the body, rejoiced that she was restored to a second palm in the martyrdom of the Lord. For from her infancy the bright signs of chastity shone in her, and already in her tender years there appeared the most chaste firmness of her mind and a certain dignity of her future passion. Then, when her full maidenhood had reached the time of adult age, and the girl, unwilling and resisting, was being forced into marriage by her parents, and her parents were handing over to her, against her will, a bridegroom, to escape the robber the girl secretly threw herself down from a height, and, borne up by the serving breezes, was received unharmed in the lap of the earth. Nor would she afterwards have suffered also for Christ the Lord, if she had died then for chastity alone. So, freed from the marriage torches, and having mocked her bridegroom together with her parents, she leapt out almost from the midst of the wedding crowd and fled, a virgin untouched, to the church, the temple of chastity and the harbor of modesty; and there, with her head consecrated and dedicated to God, she kept the most sacred hair of perpetual virginity with unshaken modesty. So, hastening to martyrdom, she bore before her in her triumphant right hand the flower of chastity as her palm. For when the proconsul asked her what she professed, she answered in a clear voice, “I am a Christian.” And when it was said by Fortunatianus, her brother, a man of the toga and her advocate, that her mind had been captured by empty arguments, Victoria answered, “It is my own mind; I have never been changed.” To this the proconsul said, “Do you want to go with Fortunatianus your brother?” She answered, “I do not, because I am a Christian; and those are my brothers who keep the commandments of God.” O girl founded on the authority of the divine law! O glorious virgin, consecrated by merit to the eternal King! O most blessed martyr, most illustrious by her gospel profession, who answered with the Lord's own words, “These are my brothers who keep the commandments of God”! Hearing this, Anulinus laid aside his authority as judge and stooped to persuading the girl. “Consider your own good,” he said. “For you see that your brother wishes to provide for your safety.” The martyr of Christ said to him, “It is my own mind; I have never been changed. For I was in the assembly, and I celebrated the Lord's service with the brothers, because I am a Christian.” As soon as Anulinus heard this, driven by rage he blazed up, and sending the most holy girl, the martyr of Christ, to prison with the others, he kept them all for the Lord's passion.

But Hilarianus still remained, one of the children of the martyr Saturninus the presbyter, who overcame his small age with great devotion. Hastening to be joined to the triumphs of his father and brothers, he did not so much shudder at the tyrant's dire threats as count them as nothing. When he was asked, “Did you follow your father or your brothers?” suddenly from the little body a young voice was heard, and the boy's narrow breast opened wholly to the confession of the Lord in the voice of him who answered, “I am a Christian, and of my own accord and will I held the assembly with my father and my brothers.” You could hear the voice of the martyr Saturninus the father coming out through the lips of his sweet son, and the tongue confessing Christ the Lord, made secure by the example of his brother. But the foolish proconsul, not understanding that it was not men but God in the martyrs who was fighting against him, and not perceiving the great spirit in those boyish years, thought that the boy could be frightened by the punishments of childhood. Then he said, “I will cut off your hair, and your nose, and your ears; and so I will let you go.” To this the boy Hilarianus, glorious with the virtues of his father and brothers, who had already learned from his elders to despise torments, answered in a clear voice, “Do whatever you want to do, because I am a Christian.” At once he too was ordered to be taken into prison, and the voice of Hilarianus was heard with great joy, saying, “Thanks be to God.” Here the battle of the great contest is finished. Here the devil is overcome and conquered. Here the martyrs of Christ rejoice with eternal congratulation over their passions and the glory to come.